September 3, 2010
We stop by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, where curator, Cindi Strauss, shows us the furniture, decorative and household objects -- created by architects -- that are on display in the exhibition, Form Follows Function: Celebrating Ten Years of the American Institute of Architects Design Collection...
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September 3, 2010
We preview Echoes of a Nation, a festival of Mexican music. This two-day event is part of the Houston Celebrates Mexico 2010 series, and takes place tonight and tomorrow evening at the University of Saint Thomas, where it's being presented by Camerata Ventapane Houston...
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September 2, 2010
Visual arts curator, Robert Boyd, humorist and film-maker, Margo Toombs and gay and prison-rights activist, writer, performer and broadcaster, Ray Hill talk about the pieces they're contributing to the eclectic slate of experimental, cutting-edge visual and performance art planned for the third weekend of this year's Houston Fringe Festival, presented by FrenetiCore...
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September 2, 2010
Artistic Director Anthony Brandt previews Musiqa's 2010-2011 season of new, contemporary concert music which will include five world premieres and collaborations with dancers, choreographers, film-makers, playwrights and actors...
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September 2, 2010
The Houston Symphony's Principal Pops Conductor, Michael Krajewski, chats with us about Broadway Rocks!, a concert of show-stopping numbers from recent hit musicals like Wicked, Jersey Boys and Rent. It opens the Symphony Pops season, tonight at the Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands and this weekend at Jones Hall...
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September 1, 2010
We introduce you to NobleMotion Dance and its signature style of integrating theater and technology with choreography. Co-Artistic Director, Andy Noble, and dancers Jesus Acosta, David Deveau and Brittany Thetford chat about On Your Mark, Get Set, a program of new works they'll perform this weekend at the Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex...
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September 1, 2010
Main Street Theater Artistic Director, Rebecca Greene Udden, previews both the company's "Main-Stage" season and its first-ever "New/Now" Series of world and regional premieres of hot-off-the-press scripts by emerging playwrights...
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September 1, 2010
Antoine Plante and musicians from his early-music ensemble, Mercury Baroque, set up their harpsichord and other period instruments in the Geary Performance Studio to treat us to portions of one of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, previewing concerts that Mercury Baroque will present in The Woodlands, Clear Lake and Houston on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening...
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La Fenice, Venice's famed opera house
Gondolas at rest
St.John makes a fashion statement at Carnevale. 
Argyle, 2009, oil on board, 24" x 24" January 19, 2010
When you stare into Sarah Williams' nightscape paintings, it's almost as if your eyes begin to adjust to the night sky -- as if your pupils are actually dilating to let in more light: soft shapes appear (a lamp post or tree in the distance); shadows present themselves on a dark pavement; the horizon seems to shift; and subtle colors emerge from dusk.
Population 4,769 is Sarah Williams' second show and first solo exhibition at the McMurtrey Gallery (on view January 16 - February 13, 2010). I met the artist on Saturday afternoon, just before the Opening. She thoughtfully led me through this body of work, which focuses on scenes from her rural Midwestern roots (hometown: Brookfield, Missouri), along with some Texas locations. Based in Denton, Ms. Williams is a recent MFA graduate of the University of North Texas and currently an adjunct professor at UNT.
Brooks Street, 2009, oil on board, 18" x 18" 
Kirksville, 2009, oil on board, 18" x 30"
"Being raised in a small town and then moving to an urban setting for my education has made me aware of the seemingly mundane, anonymous scenes existing on the periphery that tend to be ignored. Strong emotions can be prompted by place. ... Important aspects to my current work are the feelings related to the atmosphere of the environment depicted. Whether it be the soupy blackness of the sky, a faint glow on the horizon or the wet pavement after the rain, these are very much part of the distinctiveness of a place." (Sarah Williams)
Sarah Williams with Callio, 2009, oil on board, 30" x 30"
I also like this comparison, stated by Robert Jessup: "Her paintings often depict lonely places, the air thick with isolation and dread, like an image by Hopper crossed with a scene from a Cohen brothers' movie."
Indeed, there is a sense of loneliness/anonymity that intersects with the warmth of light and the specificity of location and weather.
In her snowscapes, like Callio, you take in scenes of fresh tracks on packed snow, red bows of Christmastime, evidence of deer season, buildings hiding in long winter shadows and the absence of people (tucked indoors, out of the cold).
When you exhale, you feel you'll see your breath.
Tune in for an interview with artist Sarah Williams in the coming weeks on "The Front Row"!
Images courtesy of the artist & the McMurtrey Gallery
