Glenn Downing in the MFA Project Room

As varied and pleasant an art tour as Speed Bump 2009 we're not likely to see. From strange to wonderful and back, and back again. Amazing from our first stop at MFA Gallery, where we always feel immediately comfortable, since we painted the place for our DallasArtsRevue Membership Show, Big As Night II, oh, whenever that was.

in the MFA Project Room

As often, we were drawn to the project room. First thing I asked was whether Steve'd got some neighbor kids to decorate it, but I don't think he heard me. In a few minutes of careful perusal, we were in art love with what had grown there.

fluffy object

We've seen lots of installations over the years that were just some paintings or photographs or something hung on the wall in bunches with maybe a theme or color scheme or something else running through it. But this was an all-over-the-place, in your face, duck-down-low and feel the space installation that couldn't have been anywhere else. Site-specific. Fascinating and fun.

Willkommen im Wilden Westin

Out front, large postcards toyed with our state and region in Jeff Wheeler's Actual Scenes — Genuine Characters.

MFA Light Switches

This interconnection of switches and conduit there has always reminded me of the sculpture of David Safransky, former co-owner of Gray Matter gallery.
 

Conversation in the Cube

Lots of talk at Kevin Obregon and Vanessa Neil's The Cube Creative Studio & Gallery.

Hand & Fertility Fetish Sculpture

The Cube's website proclaims "SEE where ART is MADE! Watch it being MADE!" but we didn't see anything working. That white hand, especially in the fertility context, keeps reminding of the glove the doctor wears when he checks my prostrate.

Charley Mitcherson's is the next door to the right.

Alternately called "Haute Cliff" and "The Bishop Arts District," the neighborhood is colorful and art is easy to find.
 

Charley's Painting Wall

Charlie Mitcherson's studio and gallery involves a community of artists and artisans. I especially liked Dudley Sanders work above, on the wall. Nice consistency. Interesting Meso-American vignettes.

John Walker's Book

Charley's space used to be photographer John Walker's studio, and she had his new book, Fishing For The Giant Sea Grouper, A Photographic Tribute To The Spirit Of Galveston Island, where John moved to.

Charley Mitcherson in her space

I looked, but there was no ISBN on it, and no price. I saw every page, remembering John and the work he used to do, and the fun. Nice to catch up with an old friend in a several times and places removed way. Charley and I have known each other for 30 years, and we spent some time gossiping about John and everything else. Great fun.

Light Being

Sometimes I wonder at my own taste, but I like this painting, not sure who did it.
 

That Space

Calls itself "Bubble, Space for Shindigs." Rents for what you want to do there. We loved the space and photographing it;

kids walking by pic

The view out the window was grand;

Give & Take   acrylic on plywood   24 x 24 inches

And the Cutesy Post Trendy art fit right in.
 

Gift Shop Interior

We only intended to skip one stop on the tour, but when a tour slides through an active street scene full of stores and spaces, we tend to wander. I think I missed Decorazon but did wander through this transplanted gift shop that fit the neighborhood, and because it was enormously hot, the ice cream store down the street past the soda shop.
 

Garage Sale on Eighth Street
 

We almost drove by this garage sale, but in the end we were sucked into it. Cheap stuff. We came back later for more, but they closed at 5.

Three-legged Cat

I looked longingly at a complex little interconnected metal faux folk art thingy with angels floating over graphic, hand-painted old-fashioned homes but bought this three-legged cat for $3, who is also be missing a tail.
 

Kitchen Friends Wall

Next stop was Chuck & George Home & Studio, which had a wonderful community feel to it, everywhere we looked.

Bernie & Ert Room

Art on the right. Studio on the left, toward the light.

Brushes & Paint in the Bernie & Ert Room

Don't know if this is Chuck's or George's, but I like the feel and the colors of Brian Scott & Brian Jones home and collection and studio.

Decor

Did I mention eclectic?

Bearded Madame with Broom on Front Porch

We found this ultra colorful gem on the front porch on our way out.
 

Classic Ray-Mel

Then came Ray-Mel Cornelius' home, decorated with classic and new Ray-Mel Cornelius work, which probably many of us have seen, since his work is commercial as well as fine art, and big names sometimes hire him. We went to school at what was then East Texas State University in the mid-1970s.

Radiant Art on Wall

Peering into all his art on all the walls I could find, this duo charmed me. For those of you who've been raised in homes with central heating, these are radiants, used in gas space heaters to capture heat from the burning gas and radiate it out into the room. According to the page at Dearbornheater.com, I believe these are Warmack-Williams radiants.

I love that Ray-Mel has seen the delicate art sensibilities in these common artifacts and giggled to myself when I saw them.

GG

Anna got a good shot of Ghostly Girl — reported to be able to walk through walls. She was soft and friendly with the tiniest, sharp teeth that did not draw blood.

Ray-Mel Cornelius   rooster

I looked at what I believe was every painting on Ray-Mel's site (worth twice the time), but I did not find a title for this handsome rooster, who might be about 8 x 12 inches on a desk.

Ray-Mel Studio

There's a gentle elegance about rooms connected by art by a single artist. Even when there's variety in his studio.

Studio Vignette

Photo of his wife, Becky next to where he works, and tools of several sorts, hand and mind.
 

Art Kiosk

One of the really nice things about Art Tours — beside the art and the artists — is getting to discover strange new neighborhoods, especially lovely old tree growths and rolling hills and water features, which must have been exciting during the rains of the last week or so. A whole, make-shift gallery in the back yard at Dallas photographer Erica Felicella's house.

Mike Arreaga - Take Time for Monkey Business

Nice selection of differing work, though perhaps with a common visual thread of graphics and graphic artists running through them all, on the fence leading back to, on the kiosk in her backyard and all through her house.

Courtney Miles   Courtney Miles Incognito Series

This is one of four drawings I wanted to run them all tacked so neatly to the plywood walls of the kiosk, but then they would have been too small.

In The Living Room

Art everywhere we saw.

Marie Sena - title unknown

Sorry if you can't read all the captions. Neither could I.

Back Yard

All I can say was "comfortable."

Frank Campagna - cameras

Nice big camera collage by Kettle Art owner and HCG co-owner Frank Campagna.

Dining Room & Porch

And a green view through the dining room and its arched chairs, out through the blinds to more round-top chairs and an arched brick wall out to the street and the trees around the deep creek beyond.

Fence Art

I thought these were by Erica, but I'm not sure. Maybe someone who knows will email me, so I can post the artist and maybe even the titles here in this paragraph.

  Creek Across the Street

This view is optically delusional. The concrete at the bottom angles down sharply to the creek bed more than a flood's worth of distance below. I kept imagining what it was like during the recent flood.

Creek Bed

I may have enhanced this view straight down from a nearby bridge, but all those objects were right there.
 

Blue Towel

Back on that same east and west street we kept traveling back and forth on our way to find the yard sale closed, Anna saw this. I got out and made sure it was what she thought it looked like, peeking under the towel, and watching the flies buzz.
 

MFA Front Window

Dressed up for the party. We stayed long enough to have one long conversation in the big couch — about Viet Nam, Diabetes, Fire & Rescue, getting shot by gang members, pulling the bullet out of his arm and throwing it on the ground, then chasing them down but missing their car and hitting another. Long and winding and fun conversation till Steve got back.

Steve Cruz at the Back Door past Steve Cruz Paintings

We were pretty sure the man just beyond the table was Steve's father. That's who he looked like. But Steve hardly says anything, so we didn't ask, but were pleased to think his Dad was there in the gallery for the party, or before it like us. Only about a dozen people had arrived while we stayed on, nearly exhausted from the tour, which was great fun and a marvelous photo op.
 

FB Shoes

After there, we drove back to Dragon Street to congratulate Norman Kary at his Craighead Green opening. See my review of it on the latest Art Here Lately page. We visited a couple other galleries, but were really too weary to see any more, but Anna and I both liked Fannie Brito's shoes at her opening at Mary Tomas' sweltering space.

 

If anyone knows the artist's name, title, year date, medium(s) and dimensions in inches of any of the pieces illustrated above, please send them to me at our latest email address on the Contact Us page.