A Message from Luis Purón, Executive Director

Dear Patrons of the Arts:

Last week the Exhibition Committee set its sights on San Antonio and conducted a series of studio and gallery visits as we seek to fulfill an ambitious calendar of exhibitions for 2022-2023.  Most art institutions switch shows on a quarterly basis; but not your Art Center.  We offer three different gallery experiences that turn over exhibits 9 times per year.  The purpose of our journey, was to familiarize ourselves with what is happening in the Arts across the vast state of our creative Texas.

Our first stop was Hausmann Millworks, where we visited with over ten artists, including Louis Vega Treviño, who as a visiting artist, has painted a mural in Rockport at Odyssey After School and conducted a chalk-up event through the Free Family Saturdays program.  Then we visited with gallery owner Robby Felder, at Felder Gallery, located on Main Street.  Felder’s gallery was once located in Port Aransas.  He is currently representing our very own Robin Hazard, who was selected as this year’s master artist for the Rockport Art Festival (July 3-4, 2021). 

After a leisurely lunch, we headed to the studio of Fernando Andrade to learn more about his current body of work.  Andrade draws figures using graphite on paper which he sometimes embosses with words.  He also is working on a series of abstract acrylic paintings on canvas combined with drawing.  Andrade has two exciting exhibitions this year at the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio and Gerald Peters in Santa Fe.

We rushed back to the downtown area to visit Artpace San Antonio; famed for founder Linda Pace and its international resident artist program.  We received a preview of Nazafarin Lofti’s exhibition All Things That Grow.  Lotfi combines drawing, painting, and sculpture to explore the spatial and temporal experience of bodies out of place.  She was recently in Rockport filming and photographing her sculptures in the Lamar area amongst the natural habitat of its most famous residents, the whooping cranes.

Our last stop was at the San Antonio Art League in King William for a 40-year retrospective of photography by inventor Ansen Seale.  The committee learned about his creation, the slit scan camera; a modern digital version of the panoramic camera.  In his version, a single sliver of space is imaged over an extended period of time, yielding the surprising result that unmoving objects are blurred and moving bodies are rendered clearly.  The result is pure magic.

On the way home some rested and others discussed how valuable it is to see art in person and how important it is to meet the artists whose work that allows us to imagine a better world. 

At Rockport Center for the Arts, our job is to keep the wheels of arts, culture and the humanities turning. By reaching out to artists across the state, we can advance our mission as the primary catalyst for the Arts in its many forms.

Yours,
Luis Purón