Tag: houston

The Jung Center


For years, whenever I drive through the Museum District, I look at the Jung Center and think I should check it out. So while my brother was here, he, Tom, and I included it on our Day of Museums. It’s a small building, easy to overlook among the larger museums surrounding it, but it has an interesting history. Founded in 1958 by five women who were studying the writings of Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, it has become a thriving organization that:

  • Offers more than 100 classes, programs, and weekend workshops rooted in analytical psychology, the expressive arts (writing, painting, movement), and the humanities to more than 3,000 students annually.
  • Welcomes over 5,000 visitors annually to its gallery spaces showcasing the work of Texas artists.
  • Collaborates with like-minded Houston organizations in efforts toward global psychological wholeness and compassionate action.
  • Hosts public conferences to explore current-day compelling issues, partnering with other organizations, including the Alley Theatre, Diverse Works, Holocaust Museum Houston, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Menil Collection, Methodist Hospital, Rice University, Rothko Chapel, and the University of Houston Honors College.
  • Currently provides expressive arts programs free of charge for at-risk children, senior citizens, individuals suffering from life-threatening illnesses, and professional caregivers dedicated to meeting some of our city’s most pressing needs.

An impressive organization to have begun with a shared idea among five trailblazing women.

Currently hanging in the center’s art gallery: Testing the Waters by Texas artist Robert Batterton. The drawings in this series feature mystical images blending the ethereal with the everyday. Many of the works are viewable on his site, including this one that I like a lot:

I recommend seeing them in person to fully appreciate them. There’s no charge to browse through the gallery. Hours are Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The center also includes a bookstore with a fascinating range of books–and Carl Jung action figures!



On the corner of Montrose and Berthea.

In art is the cure for what ails me

March 2011–ETA: An article in the Houston Press questions the business practices of H Gallery. I’m including this link to the article, but letting my LJ entry remain because I think these artists and their work deserve recognition.

Saturday, because I was fighting a pre-migraine, the most productive thing I did was shave my legs. I share this because I know it’s the kind of tantalizing information that makes you return to my LiveJournal again and again.

In defiance of physical maladies, I’m always willing to share art. A couple of weeks ago, Tim, Rhonda, Lindsey, and I* went to H Gallery in The Heights for the MIX Group Exhibition that included artist Gilbert Ruiz. The last time I was there, I got to see a couple of Gilbert’s paintings hanging. This time there were more, and I took a few shots for you to enjoy.


Composition in Primaries


Virginia



(View larger version of photo on black.)

From left to right, on wall:
self portrait 2009 no. 2
young heart
providence

On the wire panels:
untitled no. 3
sonic trip

Other works we saw…

…are behind this cut… Go on; click it!

Part Two

The second new-to-me museum I visited on Museum Day was the Lawndale Art Center. It’s a good thing I took that opportunity, because the gallery is currently closed until October 18 so they can set up a new installation. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the art I saw there.

First up was Math of the Afterwrath by Boozefox. Boozefox is “an Austin based collective collection consortium” and the program states that this is their most cherished artifact. The legend is that it is a giant head collected from inside a crater in the Gulf of Mexico and is being consumed from the inside out by a virus. Actually, it’s a huge work of art composed of repurposed materials including wood, cardboard, packing tape, televisions, slinkys, a fog machine, a garage door opener, and allegedly, Smirnoff Ice. It filled the entire room, so I didn’t shoot it, but if you visit KUHF you can see a little photo and hear an interview with the artists that explains it all.

Next up was Potential Modulations by artist Robert Jackson Harrington. These seven mixed media pieces are meant to convey the concept of potential: what the artist describes as “false narratives…that do nothing, they merely act as a stimulus or catalyst.” I was able to shoot a couple of low-quality photos; Harrington’s web site has much better shots.

I somehow missed Logan Beck’s installation Following Huck Finn. However, I direct you to a web site, where you can see the fascinating blog of two Houston artists (one a photographer, one a musician) as they document a bicycle/road trip from New Orleans to Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri. The trip culminated with the eighteen diptychs Beck showed at Lawndale.

I finished off my visit on a high note: the mixed media needle felt sculptures of Tobiah Mundt. The series is called Being, and as the artist describes it, the objects “mimic human or animal forms…to communicate ‘story,’ but to limit the amount of information conveyed such that each viewer must ‘fill in the blanks.’ No two viewers will see the same thing or take away the same meaning.” I couldn’t have said it better myself about the best fiction, and I had so much fun looking at these sculptures.


I think this one was my absolute favorite.

After visiting both Lawndale and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, I’ve promised myself regular museum and gallery dates so I can explore more of Houston’s art. And of course, there’s always art sneaking its way onto our everyday surfaces.


Sidewalk chalk drawing that connects the era of Moby Dick to the Twitter age.

Houston hosts a great Museum Day

More than 1300 museums participated nationally last Saturday in the sixth annual Museum Day, offering free admission to the public. It’s reported that over 500,000 people took advantage of the chance to visit museums as part of this program.

I’ll be posting images and links to two new-to-me museums I visited. First up is Houston Center for Contemporary Craft on West Main. This place was wonderful, and I can’t wait to go back. The galleries were filled with wood, metal, glass, jewelry, and fiber art. In addition, tables and studios were filled with craftspeople and artisans interacting with the public to show weaving, woodworking, blacksmithing, beading, and jewelry-making among other crafts.

I couldn’t take photos of the exhibits, but some of my favorites were Edward Lane McCartney’s “Wrecking Ball,” made of hundreds of tiny plastic soldiers and their vehicles tied together (this was very popular with kids); “Matchbook Collection” created by Gale Gibbs from found objects; Emily Black’s “A Woman’s Place Is In The Home”–a deer head she wove from and embellished with several materials; and “The Nuances of Daily Wash” by Marilyn Faulk Lanser, using dryer lint, paper, cullulose, and wax resin. So much of the art was whimsical, and it was obvious from their reactions that people really responded to it.

And the jewelry! It was breathtaking.

I did get some shots of the table exhibits with permission.


Just some of the beautiful pieces shown by the Woodworkers Club of Houston.


Fiber art from Houston Area Fiber Artists.


I fell hard for this art doll and her owl, both created by Pepper Hume.

In the small world department, I had no idea that Kerry, who I met years ago through our mutual friend Robin, is a dollmaker. Here, she’s holding up her magical Blue Mermaid:


Behind the museum was an outside garden with sculptures and many of the plants that are used in weaving, dyeing, papermaking, basketry, and more.


And my last stop was to see a working blacksmith, whose audience included a spellbound little girl who seemed glad that unlike horses, her shoes don’t have to be hammered on with the crafted nails that her adult companion showed her. The Houston Metal Arts Guild will have a member show at Hanson Galleries in Uptown Park beginning October 8.

Thanks to support from members, foundations, corporations, and friends, admission to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft is always free. The hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Although I was delighted to see so many people, especially parents getting their children excited about art, I’m looking forward to exploring the museum again at a more leisurely pace. Who’s going with me?

The End of Summer

When our friend John (who I can think of only as Johnnie) left his job at Borders last spring to go to work at Murder By the Book, I was thrilled for him. I became familiar with the Houston bookstore through writer Dean James (who I first met in a Yahoo writers’ group). Dean has never failed to give me sound advice and encouragement, writer to writer, but among the best gifts he ever gave me was my first welcome to Murder By the Book, where he then worked as manager.

Anyone who shops at the store will tell you that it’s like a home where an extended family drops in to talk–about books or writers or whatever other random topic comes to mind. It’s a little paradise for a reader, because anyone on the staff can direct you to authors similar to those you already enjoy, introduce you to new writers whose works are destined to become mystery classics, or help you find older writers whose work you might have overlooked.

I knew the store would be a place where Johnnie could enjoy what he loves best about books and bookselling. He’d be working with like-minded people, including McKenna Jordan–who bought the store from its original owner in 2009. Like Dean, McKenna has on occasion been my go-to person when I come up with ideas for new novels. It’s fun to watch them go through their mental filing cabinets when I ask, Has this been done before? They always know.

Then there’s McKenna’s husband, David Thompson, who worked at Murder By the Book for twenty-one years. When Dean told David about my Houston-based A Coventry Christmas, David said the store would host a signing. I told him nobody gets murdered in the novel, but he said it didn’t matter. I’m a Houston author and the store is always happy to support local writers.

I was scheduled to sign with two crime novelists, Colleen Thompson and L.A. Sparks in December 2006. When I told McKenna I was sending out postcards to my mailing list to promote the signing, she said, “Bring the cards in. We’ll stamp them for you.” She was amused at my shocked reaction. I was so accustomed to doing all the Timothy James Beck publicity that it never occurred to me a bookseller would take on some of that. David and McKenna not only hosted that signing, but they kept my books in stock so I could sign them whenever I came into the store. David occasionally nudged me to write something else so we could do another signing, and he also indulged my reading lust by introducing me to several new mystery series that he thought I’d like.

At Dean’s most recent signing, as I was paying for my books, Johnnie mentioned that I’d get home in time to watch Project Runway. He told David how I do the show’s challenges by making doll clothes. David said he wasn’t sure he was going to enjoy this season, and we critiqued the show for a few minutes. I was reminded of how tickled Lindsey and Rhonda get whenever Tom talks fashion. Project Runway has apparently made more than one straight man a fashion critic.

The next day, I received a direct message on Twitter from Murder By the Book: David here… last night’s PROJECT RUNWAY was *much* better! 🙂

I was looking forward to going back to the store with a couple of dolls dressed in my designs to make David laugh.

Monday, at age 38, David died unexpectedly. Though I didn’t know him well, I know by the measure of my own sadness that his loss is devastating to those who know and love him best. The comments on the store’s Facebook page, on Twitter, and on so many blogs of authors, booksellers, and readers around the country are a testament to how highly esteemed David, McKenna, Dean, and the store’s entire staff are.

This is the kind of mystery we never unravel–when someone so full of joy and enthusiasm, so beloved, is taken away too early. My summer has been bookended by two such losses, and my heart goes out to all those who mourn them.


David Thompson
1971–2010