NOCTURAL MUSINGS: Texas Artist Joe Peña’s Hopperesque Works Portray His Unique Sublime Late-Night World
South Texas artist Joe Peña is receiving long-overdue critical acclaim for his “Nightscapes” series of urban landscapes that invite viewers to accompany him on his sublime late-night journeys. Centered on food trucks, storefronts, and other venues illuminated against velvety black skies, his oil and ink paintings beautifully portray the heritage of the food truck in Mexican American culture. His show at Redbud Gallery is on view through November 27, 2022 in Houston, Texas.
New Mural in Houston’s East End Result of Community Collaboration
Mural Unveiling & Celebration on Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 11am Years ago, involving the public in planning, designing and production of a mural was central to the process of creating it. Most murals nowadays here and across the country skip that important step; one that can be crucial to a mural’s overall success in…
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MY ART COLLECTION: “Last Stop: 10:00pm, Austin Truck” by Joe Peña
One way to support artists is sharing what they do with as many people as possible. My collection features a painting by Joe Peña titled “Last Stop: 10:00pm, Austin Truck.”
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STORIES: People’s Sausage Company
As the daughter of an entrepreneur and now a business owner myself, I love hearing stories of how people start and sustain their businesses. Since our family business didn’t survive beyond my father’s retirement due to other career interests of me and my siblings, I especially love hearing how these types of businesses successfully pass the…
The Last American City: An Intrepid Walker’s Guide to Houston
For a year, I searched long and hard for an out-of-print book titled “The Last American City: An Intrepid Walker’s Guide to Houston” by Douglas Milburn, which published in 1979. I finally found one. It has been said that “few had written about Houston in such a way before.” Perhaps so — at the time,…
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Beauty Blossoms from Pain through “Paisajes Impermanentes / Impermanent Landscapes”
Memories can rise to the surface at any given moment. Sometimes, they just suddenly burst into view … so full of color and dimension that you feel as if you are living them for the first time. Other times, memories emerge when triggered by a taste, a scent, a song, a sight, a touch, an…
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MY DOWNTOWN: At the Center of the Frenzy … Learning to Accept the Swirling Changes in the Arts District
So much has changed since I wrote this article. Six years later, now April 8, 2022, I have been living in Houston. Until January 2020, I commuted monthly to Los Angeles for work while maintaining my residence — and building a new life — in Texas. ~ Melissa Richardson Banks I first saw —…
Embracing the Unknown
Change is constant. If we are alive, we are in a dynamic state … we truly never stop until we die. (Or do we? Does the soul continue? Another question for another day.) Even when it doesn’t feel as if we are in motion, we are … blood is flowing, cells are regenerating, the brain…
Mapping the Arts District
Years ago, I commissioned a map of the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. My idea was simple: create a collectible work of art created as a collaboration with artists who lived and worked in the neighborhood. Ohara Hale (an artist and a musician who lived in the Arts District during 2005–2007) designed and drew the illustration…