Thursday, April 7, 1988/The Battalion/Page 7
s
Us
Artists from around state
Jisplay work at craft fair
-o“ / -
Igiuld well be spent playing outside
ipiiilis
■
By Stephen Masters
Reporter
entire weekends at craft sh ows,
ten against my will. Time that
I st tin
spent looking
d glass work.
at one more
glass work. Then I grew
■dev and didn’t have to go. I
a\ iided the shows like the plague —
until now.
■ the Spring Craft Festival, pro
moted by MSC University Plus, was
■Id Tuesday and Wednesday fea-
Bring craft artists from throughout
le state showing their wares. The
boredom I once found at such shows
Ks replaced with fascination and
exdteqient, as well as a real appre-
ition for the amount of time and
ergy placed into each piece. Even
Ithe stained glass was impressive.
T When Kirk Houser of Greenbriar
Ikes time out from practicing jug-
ling five balls at once and isn’t giv-
Jg reporters a quick lesson, he falls
I kick on stained glass.
T “I get my ideas from wrapping pa
per or books or anything with a pic
ture on it,” he said.
His inventory includes stained
rss grapes, bicycles and even a ka
leidoscope made of plumbing pipe
■th mirrors and two stained glass
■reels on the end, one of many
Items he’s seen in 13 years of work-
jjupTingwith stained glass.
■ “Sometimes I get really frustrated
at Hd I just have to walk away,” he
|m Hid “Juggling helps in that way. I’ll
ta- H cutting a piece of glass and it’ll
^Heak, so I’ll leave. Then I’ll come
|;Bck the next day and cut a piece
. Hd it'll break too. You definitely
ugharHive to be patient.”
mg. H Keith Sink of Bryan, who was sell-
ig. PantHg stained glass at the show in place
isapr oi his wife Beverly who actually does
nvolvKIthe artwork, agreed.
■ Mrs. Sink works on the Texas
ipresetH&M campus as a secretary in the
is CeirHochemistry department and has
lit. Hen making stained glass art in her
Hare time for six years. She got
eherHwited by taking a University Plus
ing bipBss on stained glass,
en tteH Mr. Sink said it usually takes her
vould iROirnd two days if she uses a pattern
and brifroni a craft book, but patience is still
about 1 important.
dents,'HOf course, patience comes into
Photo by JayJanner
Hand-made bean bag dolls were on sale at the Spring Craft Festival
Wednesday at Rudder Fountain. Mark Walter created these dolls
and sells them for $6 each.
play in all types of craft work, not
just stained glass. Jiist ask first-timer
Steven Bradford of Houston who
has been building windmills shaped
like birds, woodcutters and water-
wells for three months.
“It takes around six hours to make
each of the birds, but most of that
time is spent painting,” Bradford
said. “It takes two coats of white
(paint) and waiting for it to dry takes
a lot of time.
Other items don’t take artists long
at all.
Mark Walter of Bastrop makes
clowns with solid wood heads and
bodies stuffed with soybeans, an art
he has practiced for the last eight
years.
“Each face is hand-drawn and
painted, but it only takes about
twenty minutes for me to make each
clown,” he said. “Of course, when
you include all the time spent for
each one, it comes out to about 50
cents per hour.
“I got the idea when I lived in Eu
rope with several craftspeople. I
started out making stuffed animals
and slowly evolved toward clowns.”
Others never give up on stuffed
animals, like Peggy Burnett of Hous
ton.
“I’ve always loved craft shows,”
she said. “Once I went to one where
someone was doing a lace bear and
they asked me to help.
“After I got through helping I
wondered why I couldn’t do the
same thing, so I started making
stuffed animals and have been ever
since. That was about three years
ago.”
Still others, like Peter Drucker,
avoid cloth and go with precious
metals.
“Some of my stuff takes 10 min
utes to do; other stuff takes an entire
year,” he said. “I make my jewelry to
last more than one generation so it
takes longer to do.”
Drucker’s gold and silver chains
take longer because they are hand
woven, a tedious process when work
ing with metals. However, most of
his jewelry is forged with a hammer
and doesn’t take quite so long.
So not only did I survive the craft
show, I even enjoyed it. So much for
childhood memories.
ulitzer prize-winner discusses
themes present in American art
By Lucinda Orr
Reporter
[Pulitzer Prize-winner Dr. William
H. Goetzmann, in his Wednesday
night lecture “Western Art as Intel-
Htual History: the Paradox of Con-
Hest as Reflected in Western Art,”
gave a slide presentation to explain
pniie of the themes historically pre
sent in American paintings.
■The University of Texas history
professor previously taught at Yale
and Cambridge universities, has
published 48 scholarly articles, and
either authored or co-authored 12
other books, including one which
earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination
and which he adapted as a six-part
television series that PBS aired last
year.
Western art’s portrayal of man
ifest destiny and conquest was the
first of four themes Goetzmann ex
plained during the lecture. He
showed several slides, including
John Cast’s “American Progress”
and Emmanuel Leutze’s “Westward
the Course of Empire,” to illustrate
how artists of that time saw pioneers,
covered wagons, railroads and ex
pansion.
“The American people seemed to
accept manifest destiny and to ac
cept the whole idea of conquest. . .
with pride, rather than guilt,” Goetz
mann said.
The second segment of the pre
sentation concentrated on artwork
that depicted nature, including
Thomas Moran’s “The Grand Can
yon of the Yellowstone” and Albert
Bierstadt’s “A Storm in the Rocky
Mountains.”
As his third theme, Goetzmann
discussed how Darwinism, evolution
and “survival of the fittest” were
portrayed in western art. Several of
Frederic Remington’s works were
shown to point out the struggles and
hardships of existence.
The fourth portio of the program
was how western art shows the rise
of anthropology.
Goetzmann will be conducting a
lecture titled “Americans, Explora
tion and the Culture of Science: a
Moral Melodrama” at 8 tonight in
Rudder Tower 601.
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I started a nursery.
I constructed a well.
I surveyed a national park.
I taught school.
I coached track.
I learned French.
I WAS IN THE
PEACEC0RPS
_
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be the start of a great future. Now accepting
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Contact TAMU Campus Representative, Collen
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