Day 32 - What's Inside

We are inside with a lot of books, art, and artifacts. This little painting cheers me up. It is by Jennifer Balkan who is a local artist we like very much.

One of the greats

A few years ago, I wrote a story about this man, Jim Franklin, who is one of the greatest artists Austin has ever known. He is still in town, creating fine work.

Austintatious Artists

The signatures on this mural are a work of art in themselves.

En Plein Air

This gentleman was painting a Congress Avenue scene the other day.

Lili's art show

Lili Blessing recently had an art show at GSD&M. See the red bench? That is where people meet to talk about their spiritual side. A lot of the people she painted sat on it and conversed with her. Then she painted them. Her mom is Sara Hickman, the former State Musician of Texas.

Talking about Art

Sunday we went to a gallery talk at the Scanlon Art Gallery at St. Stephen's School. (We didn't know this gallery was there and I don't think I'd ever been on the school campus.) Our friend Katy Nail had a show and that's her talking about her work.

Portrait of the Artist as Himself

Here you see Jim Franklin, a remarkable artist and an Austin legend. The whole concept of the armadillo as a cultural icon came from him. (As did "Long Live Longnecks." And see below for the official designation.) I interviewed him for my West Austin News column and visited in his studio recently. The painting in this photo is of himself -- he drew the original outline for it with his eyes closed. The resulting perspective-bending take is remarkable. I swear that Jim doesn't look like he's aged all that much in the last forty years. He still toils in relative obscurity in a small studio off a side street near a barbecue joint in downtown Austin.

Oh, by the way, here it is in official language --

RESOLVED, That the 74th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby designate the longhorn the official Large State Mammal of Texas and the armadillo the official Small State Mammal of Texas.

Mental rhythms

We attended a gallery opening last night at Women & Their Work for our friend Laurie Frick's work. Her art reflects the patterns of everyday existence. These two ladies are taking a look at one of her intricate pieces.

A woman and her work

Here you see our friend Laurie Frick and one of her magnificent pieces of artwork. I shot this in her studio not long ago while interviewing her for my newspaper column. She'll be starting a show at Women & Their Work this Saturday.

E.A.S.T. with one of our Favorites: Jennifer Balkan

Last weekend (and next, too) there is a massive art tour of studios called East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.). Sunday we went to a few spots in an area of east Austin called French Place. Jennifer Balkan poses here with one of her paintings. She's one of our favorites and has appeared in these pages and couple of other times: here and here. She had a show in a gallery in our neighborhood, too, in 2008.

E.A.S.T. Artist

Every year artists in East Austin have the East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.). We went for a small stroll through a very small number of the venues Sunday. We will let the fabulous Jennifer Balkan represent the tour for the second year in a row. (See her with her work last year here.) This unfinished painting will have a collage or sewn surround, I think she said.

Daniel Johnston Original

Daniel Johnston is a singer/songwriter/artist and sufferer of bipolar disease. He painted this mural on the side of a store facing The Drag* fifteen years ago. (It was a secondhand music store called Sound Exchange at the time.) The mural has been preserved through store changes and is considered iconic by his fans. There was a documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, released in 2006 about him. There is a fan site I found for him.

I like the picture because besides showing the stark black and white and simple lines of the preserved mural, the newspaper boxes (one conveniently toppled when I walked by) look like crayons ready to color it.

*The Drag is Guadalupe as it runs along the west side of the UT campus. You pronounce Guadalupe in Austin not in Spanish (Huadalupa) but GWAD-Loop or some such. Not that we don't know a lot of Spanish around here (we pronounce guacamole correctly about half the time) but for some reason street names have a pronunciation key all their own.

Art Gallery and Home For Sale

Andrew Long, with one of his paintings.

When we were at the party last Wednesday, I was anchored against the wall (just staying out of traffic not being a wallflower) and a guy walked up and asked if he could perch his plate on the table by me. I introduced myself and told him I recognized him as the painter who had done a portrait of Miguel, the chef/co-owner/founder of Fonda San Miguel. He was Roi James and we talked about his art and then I heard him telling another person about a show that had its opening last night. FFP came up, we talked some more, exchanged cards. Roi invited us to the opening which was really neat. This home builder, Metrohouse, had a beautiful modern duplex for sale so they filled the two (over 2000 sq. foot) homes with paintings and sculpture and turned them into a giant gallery. Obviously it's a chance to get people to look at the homes. Besides Roi there was another painter, Andrew Long, who is a longtime friend. (I took his picture because I caught him with his work. When we caught up with Roi he was looking at Andrew's paintings!) The third artist was Stephen Dubov and he was showing sculpture made from recycled and broken windshield glass and metal tubing, cables and clamps. It was amazingly beautiful. I didn't know Stephen and didn't catch up with him.

This event was amazing. I love the modern aesthetic of these homes and, empty, they made a great backdrop for the art. A DJ ran some custom music and there was art gallery food and drink.

Alluding to Function

Back at the holiday arts fair on Sunday to the Ron Boling booth. His cards says "Alluding to Function" and I think that's why we see lids and spouts and handles that are really probably decorative. I'm just guessing because I don't know this ceramic artist from nearby New Braunfels and he was otherwise engaged when I snapped this picture but I got a business card. FFP and I were saying Sunday how amazing it is how many great musicians are in this town after we heard a great band at our club Christmas party. It is also amazing how many fantastic artists there are around.

Artist Series

We have shown other artists in Austin Daily Photo. (By the way, yesterday was our 200th post. My time does fly.) Yesterday after I went to the gym at my club I walked across the cul-de-sac to the Laguna Gloria property which is part of the Austin Museum of Art. They were having an artists' fair for the Christmas season. This is Barry George. He's been in Austin a long time. (With some sojourns elsewhere I think.) He once executed a commission for us which became the first member of our backyard found object band. I found a picture here on one of my other blogs of that long ago work. Barry makes things by welding found objects and he had a lot of small objects for Christmas presents in his booth for this show.

Art in the East

This is Jennifer Balkan with her painting and some "models" (the armless dolls shown). East of IH35, there is a thriving art community spread among taquerias, bodegas, gentrified single- and multi-family housing and businesses and aging homes with their original residents still in them. We drove around for a little bit yesterday during the first day of E.A.S.T. (East Austin Studio Tour). There were over a 100 locations of warehouses and old houses where artists worked and were showing their wares. We only made it to a couple (along with a stop at Joe's Bakery), but we made our first stop Dog House Studios which is an old house on Willow with the painters Jennifer Balkan, Karen Maness and Pablo Taboada sharing the digs. We were familiar with and loved the two ladies when they were showing and working elsewhere.

E.A.S.T. continues today, Sunday the 18th, (10-5).

Austin Art

Yesterday we were invited to a lovely home for an art exhibit and party. The home, perched in the hills off The High Road, had a Zen feel. Our friend Katy Nail's paintings had been hung all over the house making for a delightful show of house and art. She appears here in the bathroom with a painting she calls "Beyond Marfa." She is wearing some awesome boots and a poncho from Guatemala embroidered with many birds. The party was packed with interesting people including Katy's mother, Frances Nail, an author; and her daughter, Carrie Rodriguez, a singer. We also talked to Johnny Guffey, the infamous and famous longtime waiter at Jeffrey's, and the McAfees, the owners of Barr Mansion.