Historic SCARBROUGH BUILDING Hosts Contemporary Art Show from CAS November 5 - December 1, 2007
101 West Sixth Street, Southwest corner of Sixth & Congress Ave
Enter on 6th Street Entrance to Lobby
I've decided to break the ice then, the glass ceiling, of reaching up to the wide range of these two fine art groups, by starting with a small show sponsored by CAS at the Scarbrough Building located at 6th and Congress in downtown Austin.
The Scarbrough Building lobby itself is as much an art as the more recent artistic creations it now showcases.
I don't know statistically if true, but having worked downtown in One American Plaza, across the street from the Scarbrough Building for nearly 7 1/2 years, this feels like the busiest intersection in downtown Austin.
SCARBROUGH BUILDING
So then, it's that more amazing to simply slip through the building's entrance on W 6th, the thick glass doors trimmed in gold, and pass into the past. The heavy doors with the building's name and "1910" clearly marked, must make time wait in gentleman like fashion, for, though a bank is now housed inside, with a full service gym below street level, the smallish building lobby with the well lit glass cases is still and quiet and lovely.
A joy to view art within.
A google search for "Scarbrough Building" found several interesting hits, including a nice history from AustinPostcard.com. I'll only add to their article there that, since I told people of the art exhibit there, several have smilingly recalled shopping at the department store's basement (now the gym) for "bargains," and finding them!
The Art Deco green and gold motifs and granite walls with original light sconces, all evenly lit by the recessed lighting spanning the ceiling inside curved beams, and the sense of quiet induced by the thick walls excluding the cars and crowds outside, positively lets one enjoy the art displayed in the glass cases set to the walls. The wall themselves flank the short distance from the street entrance to the waiting elevators.
THE SHOW
A refreshing balance of 3D work is amply laid out unobtrusively before the assortment of 2D acrylics, watercolors, oils, collages, and photography.
As I enter the lobby, to my right, Jennifer Bright's light wiry mini-sculpture wire and rock combinations twinkle to me. "Tree" and "Rock Harp" easily play to my whimsy, while a more slender unusual piece speaks of struggle and tribulation, even before I see the title is "911 Tribute." Nestled among her work is a small bowl of over-laid sections of pottery by Valerie Olivas, delicate but strongly intertwined. I'll see later, along the other wall, she also does photography, with visual overlays of landscape.
I'll add now I won't, as I usually prefer, have each artist linked to their website, but rather link each artist's name to CAS' website. A member listing is there. The opening page for CAS also has an info request form in case you can't find the member's contact info right away.
Going down to the right along the length of this first glass case, I see it stretches, almost to the street I would guess, where my own heavily textured water soluble oil, "Hackberry's" gets ample light. But my eye is drawn to "Cloud Tabbies" by Nancy Lay. Kitty cats are her preferred motif, and these blue cloud-draped felines have that "i need a hug, and food treat" look. Or maybe my own 11 yr old long-hair tabby, Leo, has me trained well :-)
Anchoring the same street end of the glass case are two stout aluminum sculpture heads by Angelica Adams, while above them meditates a peering blue face close-up by Melsa. Abstracts in acrylic by Betty Jameson and watercolor by Kathi Herrin, flanked by a clean acrylic and paper on canvas minimalist landscape by Greta Olivas, draw me along the back of the glass case to Leroy Lawson's photo of "Sunbeams in Upper Antelope Canyon," where I pause and feel myself wander along the cool curved colorful walls of rock he saw, captured, then brought back to us.
It was time to see into the long glass case along the opposite wall. I assumed it probably wouldn't, couldn’t, be as much fun. I assumed wrong. :-)
I should've walked the distance of the glass cases. At first glance I would've guessed no more than 12 to 15 feet, and maybe they are, but the complexity of the range of small pieces stretches the distance; my eyes see variation lengthening the space.
Again the 3D work along the glass cases' base catch my eye. Dianne Sonnenberg, for those who admired and enjoyed her guitar creation, among a select group of giant guitar interpretations chosen and shown in key spots in Austin (hers was, I've heard, auctioned recently for over $50,000), has sprinkled an assortment of shapes and colors that are fun to see and want, most for under $200! Done in combinations of stained glass and art glass, the various pedestals and round sphere feature a lion, a gold star, and many many chunks of cut glass. One yummy 10 " square piece, aptly named "Red Hot," also boasted fused glass and a mirror centered on it's flat surface, my favorite of hers. It reeked of a mood nurtured under a hot central Texas sun.
"Ghost Lead," a stunningly well done collage by Maggie Miller hung near by. An interior scene, with cut autumn leaves falling outside the tied-draped window, a bowl before the window hosting a pure white clear cut leaf, the muted colors and smart overlays of cut-cloth-like colors rested and moved the eye effortlessly with subtle teases.
Surrounding Maggie's work were two Linda Marie Caballero oils in sepia tones mimicking wood or leather in cryptic images filled with symbols styled like Mayans or Egyptians. Interesting.
Resting further to the left, the direction taking me to the street side of the inside again, hung both John Bittick's pastel of shaded refuge and cultivated hillsides and Joan Lawson's carefully crafted acrylic "Bluebonnets." Both employed fragile subdued use of texture, evoking just enough of a sense of space by paint alone.
Kay Hughes' four piece mini-box set, hung vertically one above the other, was perfect for it's end cap-like space within the long glass case. Across from her, on the other end cap, guarding against any sense of the busy street restlessly rushing by beyond the wall, hung Natasha Mylius' palette knife overlaid textures, "Horses." A young pointy-head colt-like horse seemed to strain to strip itself from the canvas as two older more stoic more knowing parent-like equestrians stood patiently behind. I kept wanting to find fault with the pointy-ness of the foreground horse, but kept being drawn back to the image as a whole, and finally came to admire it’s juxtaposition of strained motion and steadfastness.
Several other CAS members contributed, also in various media, including March Mattingly, La Treace E. Giles, Diana Weems, Odile Burton, and Gwen Dennis.
Once you step back outside there is one more art treat. Near the corner toward Congress Avenue, suspended from who knows where and who knows how (though i've heard the someone who does know where and how, must be paid to do the delicate dangerous work), Barbara Houston's tall white-tinted-bright-red playful abstract, "Domingo Cafe," greets the electic mix that frequents Austin's downtown.
I can't say more than, "It's a small show in a small space worth a lot of seeing."
A reminder, all artist name links are cued to the CAS website. The member list should refer you to any related member website. If not, the handy information request form on the main page should get you the contact information needed. Many of the artists also had various contact information on their image identifying cards in the exhibit.
Thank you much,
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