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The White Rock Lake Artists Studio Tour —
It's About Process - page 2
< < < Tour Page 1 White
Rock Lake Tour DARts Member Page
Our Tour Stories
from 2001 2002
ON THIS PAGE: Robin Herndon Anne
Neal Alice O'Leary T.Stone The
Dairyette
Creative Art Center
Marco Rubino Virginia Lindsay Mud
Puppy Angela Gallia
Night lights $25 each
I knew where Lawther went, and I knew we were going toward that circum-lake street, but I had no idea we were headed toward a long-held and oft-expressed dream to visit one of the big, new houses on The Lake. A lot of artists on the White Rock Lake tour have little or nothing to do with White Rock Lake per se, but this one did.
Herndon's Garage Studio
When we told Robin, while we were standing in her art garage watching her glass, that we'd often wished to stand inside this house on this lake, looking out and photographing, she toured us through the warm wide kitchen and front rooms, and I shot out into the misty gray lake.
Herndons' View
When we left her garage studio, we had big smiles plastered on our happy faces. Oh, and the glass was nice, too.
Back Lighted
Iridescent Sushi Tray - $125 set of five
Here's the real magic — ceramic
totems at
Robin's front door
Anne Neal
Artsy Studio Sign
We liked the rebar arrow. Bent metal proves an artist is serious, but the sign's "studio" was a little too artsy to be easily read. Helpful, though. We knew the arrow pointed to art.
Drawings
Over and over on this tour, we saw drawings tacked to walls — not so subtle proofs of process.
More Process: tools in working studio
Unslumped Koi
She told other visitors it wasn't finished,
yet, because it still needed to be slumped.
We thought it was beautiful.
Tools and Parts hanging from the Ceiling
Busy Studio with Anne and Anna
Alice O'Leary
Farmer's Market
Showing Process — painting in her studio
Hand-painted Color Charts
An educational experience velcroed to the wall.
Flower Paintings in Box
T.Stone
Special Used Car Lot Decor attracted our
attention, and I'm sure the neighbors loved it.
We almost didn't go to T. Stone's studio, because her (and a bunch of others') name was under a big, confusing, red "Saturday-only" notice on the map brochure. It wasn't till we encountered another T.Stone fan along the tour that we found out that T. was indeed open Sunday, today, so we went, wondering how many other folks were fooled by the map muckup.
Wrapped Studio protecting it from the rain
It was already raining when we started our tour. We were sluggish and weary from yesterday's journey but also excited for this. Crowds, T told us, came like the rain, in spurts.
T.Stone Flower in the Rain — $40
T.Stone's Back Yard Art Sale with the late Gladys
Gostin's
running Peacock in the foreground
For use while visitors were here, T had bought cheap umbrellas at the dollar store. A nice touch Anna especially appreciated. I couldn't juggle a brella and my camera, which lens and body are sealed against smattering rain, though not dunking.
T.Stone Sculpture in her front yard
—
what a great setting for a large,
distinctive T.Stone sculpture!
The Dairy-ette
The Dairy-ette had fine hamburgers
and great root beer, giving us
good reason to ever want to go back to the Casa View wasteland.
It wasn't on the map or on the tour, just on the way. We admired the simple directness of their sign, the fact that it prominently mentioned root beer, the nothing architecture and the pleasant carry-out waitress. If they'd given us half a chance with the change, we'd have left a bigger tip.
Creative Arts Center
Cynthia Daniel - Bamboo Breeze - welded
metal
and fused glass - 60 x 15 inches
If Bill McLean could go back to the Fort Worth Modern, surely I could go back to the Creative Arts Center. After all, I never did sign or even accept their legal huffnpuff Certified Mail (almost always worth missing) legally (less or more) banning me from their public campus after I published (in DallasArtsRevue) one of their student's comments calling them Art Nazis (Thereby proving the point.).
I was met there by smiles from some who would know, so maybe their legalistics never took effect. Anyway, I went, and saw, if not utterly amazing art, at least very good student and instructor work.
Including Cynthia Daniel's piece, which I'd used on the DARts Calendar, where I was careful to credit the artist, if not the institution, because CAC has been particularly stupid toward me. Nice piece. I knew it was either mosaic or glass, turns out both. Very nice. I would have given it best in show, hereby do.
Karen Jacobi - OCD mixed media sculpture - 20 x 12 x 7 inches
It was oddly comfortable roaming those halls again after spending most of a year finding colorful instances of art and learning and teaching for the CACA site during my temporary tenure as pro bono webguy, when my dear friend Barbara West was running day to day activities there. Not that I wanted to stay long or come back often.
Marco Rubino
Marco Rubino - flame sculpture
I'd been to Mies (pronounced meese) and Marco's house before, when I was associated with the Texas Sculpture Association doing their website during their year of reorganization, but I was surprised when we hove into their studio space. I wasn't really paying attention to where we were, although I had especially hoped to see his work on this tour and had told "my navigator" Anna, who reads maps far better than I do. Everybody's work is unique, of course, Marco's is just more so.
Unusually, I found something to like at every stop on our accidentally selective tour. We didn't avoid anybody in particular. There's been times when there were fewer stops, that I've visited every studio — when I roamed alone and paid less attention to the people. But this time we took our sweet time, enjoying the social, digging the artists as well as the places, their art and processes.
Spiral Tools and Wire Art reminds
of other
artists on this tour
Marco Rubino - Spiral Sculpture in Studio
Seeing Marco's studio through one of his multiple orbiting spiral sculptures seems ideal. It's beautiful, and I wonder how often this studio is so neat. Not many of us can think in 3-D like that, then bring it from an idea or drawing so craftfully into real three-dimensional form. So fine. I still like watching this photograph.
Mies & Marco in the Studio Tent where
he can't leave small
tools
overnight
or they're gone by tomorrow.
James Crowe's Waves
I still remember looking up and vaguely recognizing, though not yet placing this massive mobile. As I stared and played back visual memories, slowly it slid into place that this was one of the late Jim Crowe's elegant pieces. Last time I'd seen it, it graced the front yard of Jim and Carol's house when they lived in Duncanvill. Here, among the trees in Mies & Marco's big East Dallas back yard, it was gorgeous — on extended borrow. Nearby was a mailbox Marco had made in Jim's signature bright primary colors, an unsubtle contrast and figurative balance.
Virginia Lindsay
Three Round Disks
We liked Virginia Lindsay's neat studio, and we wandered there awhile, watching how she makes her distinctively colorful geometrical plates. Her process was everywhere.
Green Spirals
and Virginia Lindsay applying her recipe for red
Betsy Doan - Mud Puppy Studios
Purple Fish
Mud Puppy was probably our quickest stop. Soon as we saw that, except for the fun fishes swimming over the lawn along the driveway, all there was were — and the tiny garage was crammed with them — colorful, craftish crosses with no visual or conceptual context beyond decor and religion, we split.
No process we could find. Empty calories.
Angela Gallia
Angela's Danglies in the living room.
I'd seen them there before, this time
i got them in focus.
Angela's was our last stop for the day and the tour. I'd visited her studio before, so I felt comfy there — a time to sit on the back porch, eat homemade chili, drink ice cold pop and talk with a random sampling of old and new friends. A perfect ending for our informal tour.
A slowish but still social nine stops today. At this rate, we could have finished the whole rest of the tour in only two more days.
Objects found while a friend
fished at White Rock
Lake
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including a new, Easy Guide to Joining this site
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< < < 2006 White Rock Lake Artists Studio Tour
since
mid April 2005
Copyright 2006 by J R Compton. All Rights Reserved.
