Eloquent Stone Carvings of Cody Vance

Eloquent stone carvings of Cody Vance View this email in your browser Cody Vance was born in 1965 in Eureka, Kansas and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He began his career in the arts during his service with the United States Air Force in 1985.  In 1997, Vance was able to hone his skills in illustration as a Graphic Artist ~ being a Military text book illustrator. The Department of Defense recognized Vance’s skills and named him Military Graphic Artist of the Year - 2007, 2008, and 2009.  It was the first time the DoD conferred this prestigious award to a military artist more than once and the only time in its history that it has bestowed the award to the same artist for consecutive years. His career in the Air Force provided valuable life experiences for Mr. Vance to draw upon in his career as an artist, including travel around the world, particularly throughout Western Europe. However, in 2008, while studying under sculptor Rachman Ulmer at the Inspire Community Fine Art Center in San Antonio, Texas, Mr. Vance discovered his passion for stone sculpting and has found a voice in the eloquent and organic carvings of various exquisite rocks and minerals; including: Italian Ice Alabaster, Travertine, and Steatite. “My sculptures beg to be touched…demand to be felt”, says Vance. “How else can one understand that this fluid, twisting, sensuous thing before them is stone?” In essence Cody Vance creates a form balanced with negative and positive spaces using twists, turns, ribbons, curves, and sensual grooves.  Vance resides in San Antonio and is a member of the Air Force Art Program, Texas Sculpture Group and Texas Sculpture Association.   Cody Vance's sculptures are available at the J.R. Mooney Gallery,Boerne location only.  Prices range from $2,500 to $3,200. To purchase please call Gabriel Diego Delgado, Gallery Director @  830-816-5106

Iconology of D. Mendoza

Madonna de la Salud

Diana Mendoza

Oil / 10” x 8” / $920.00 framed

The spiritual art of Diana Mendoza is imagery that offers dramatic texture.  She is purposeful in the application of gold leaf with oil on canvas.   The clothing is artistically benefited by using metallic leaf application to create medallions as well as clothing accents. 

The hues are consistently regal.  Blue, ochre, ruby red and green are used in values that communicate harmony to the figurative paintings.   Mendoza uses light brush strokes and ease of hand that links the artist to the painting in a reverent way.  The radiant halo adds continuity to the painting, defining the spirituality of the Madonna. 

The blessed Madonna and child are portrayed with porcelain like features and facial perfection that is beaming and sets the two apart from mortal’s portraiture.  There is contentment as the loving Madonna supports the child and the child reciprocates with an outstretched arm in trusting childlike love. 

  The embrace suggests affection, care, and honor that are uniquely shared by adult and child in any culture.  Their eyes gaze off at distance as they savor time together and seem to understand their unique calling in history.

Diana Mendoza is known for her skillful precision.  Her ability to combine gold leaf and oil on canvas in tracery outline is a time consuming process that results in imagery that is appealing in many cultures and touches the human spirit.

© Betty Houston

J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Which Way, the Patience of the Cowboy

Mazoy 

Which Way?

Oil on canvas / 30 x 40” / $1,125.00 framed

Mazoy is both artist and storyteller.  He uses of color helps illustrate the time of day and invites the viewer to participate in the happenings of this cowboys’ daily routine.  His color choices are traditional and realistic to the rural countryside; refraining from embellishment to portray the aptly named Which Way?

Two horsemen seek direction.  Mazoy portrays stillness and the obedience of the horses by using slight variations of brown and tan; anchoring them in the landscape, with an almost central composition.

 The use of neighboring tones communicates the ease of the dutiful equine. The brush strokes are fine and the absence of sheen on the horsehair confirms working animals. The hounds are trained to satisfy the owners request for direction but, elusiveness prevails.  They are surrounded by water and the scent of the hunted is lost.

In contrast, the flowing water is more impressionistic and painted in long horizontal strokes that echo the reflecting colors of the vegetation and the animals. Beyond the water’s edge is lush greenery supported by dense green sub growth that is thriving.

The horsemen understand the plight of the dogs and patiently exchange eye contact. It appears that the participants understand the complexity of the situation.  The hues, the brush strokes and the overall calmness contribute to the acceptance of the situation.

© Betty Houston

JR. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

830-816-5106

Abstract Longhorns

J. Park

Peering Around 

Oil on Canvas

24” x 36”

$1,570.00 (framed)

J. Park offers layer upon layer of color that becomes a cattle adventure.

Most animals are social and this is definitely a social setting painting! 

There is painterly movement with strokes of confidence that defines the tilted heads and the gathering of the group in an uncanny communicative order; followed by disorder and ending with content-ness. The animals appear to seek a unified understanding and react to that moment in which they all share. They are close in space but, individual in the act of visual attending. 

Rich tones of red, brown and orange separate the gathering and define individual animals. These hues are countered by an area of cool white, blue and the grey sky. The smallest touches of green, yellow and purple are present and add life to the slightly off balance of contrasting temperatures. What began as a painting of five longhorns has become an opportunity to appreciate the inclusive marriage of all colors of the spectrum.

The composition is abstract and requires momentary viewing of the painting. There are visual surprises – the counting of the longhorns; the sky and the turf in harmony, and the strokes of abstract patterns. 

J. Park offers a visual journey. However, his choice of colors is the same found in more traditional and paintings, applying an abundance of earth tones that can complement any interior.

© Betty Houston
J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Minimalist Louis Vega Trevino at J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Minimalist Louis Vega Trevino at J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne View this email in your browser A prolific San Antonio painter, Louis Vega Trevino’s signature artwork is/has been on display in many prominent public places: the Terminal B building at the San Antonio Airport, Main Street Plaza, Chamber of Commerce, and various City Administrative and Mayoral Offices. Louis Vega Trevino is a trained architect having graduated from San Antonio College with degree that spans both architecture and art; granting him an unusual perspective on the two industries; forging an uncanny ability to create work that is influenced by a variety of architectural parameters. Louis Vega Trevino's painting reflects a deep understanding of historical precedents.  Without any derivative step, he has built upon a number of important, painterly languages to evolve a style that is instantly recognizable as uniquely his own. Louis dismisses subject matter altogether for compositional 1960’s minimalism.  Known as a colorist stripe painter, Trevino explores simple geometric alignments with hard edged and blurred line, verticals and horizontal selections that invite the viewer into his world of artistic movement, optical illusion and irregular “Frank Stella-ish” shaped canvases –all making amusingly clever arrangements. Trevino's painting recalls not only the atmospheric color fields of Mark Rothko and Julies Olitski, but also that indeterminate margin where color field interests merge with the geometric and optical abstraction of Gene Davis and Richard Anuszkiewicz.  It is in that margin that Trevino's work finds its form, an area once explored by Morris Louis and which Trevino's color-charged compositions have revived and redefined. Louis is neither tied to formalities of pictorial definitiveness like perspective, detail or anatomical renditions, his paintings are something of a paradox:  balancing cool analysis with a hot pursuit of color relationships in which he blurs the distinction between color, line and form such that those elements seem to merge and deconstruct in an astonishing blend of hues that are only conceptual in relation to one another. Taking more freedom in pictorial placement, shaped canvases are purposefully arranged in a way that is neither fluid nor geometric, but teeters on the brink of symbolic.  With no one canvas sharing a common axis, each section can be angled to a distinct degree; making for matching corners, but obsessively evident is the reference to negative space contemplation if work is arranged where no one side touches the other and small sliver of space is left to exist between the edges.  © Gabriel Diego Delgado Gallery Director, J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Louis Vega Trevino is now available at J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne. To purchase the artwork of Louis Vega Trevino, Call J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne at 830-816-5106. Price ranges from $1,800.00- $3,500.00 Visit us this Second Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013 and see his new selections of work.

Bill Scheidt--The future of Native American, Cowboy and the Western Art Genres, and its role in Contemporary Art!

Let’s reevaluate the future of Native American, Cowboy and the Western Art Genres, and its role in Contemporary Art!

Recently San Antonio has seen the decade long cultivation of funds to finalize the budget needed for the opening of the new Briscoe Western Art Museum in downtown San Antonio, the signature Cowboys & Indians as Southwest Art Magazines are thriving and various Wild West reenactments around Texas still spur the collective memory of the stories behind the settlement of the West and the stubborn and cherished Texas Pride. 

But more importantly, what happens when key artists of a specific art genre begin to pass away, leaving behind a legacy but no continued lineage? 

Answer: Mentorships and workshop spur students and traditionalists who have studied with the masters to try to keep the coveted aesthetic going. 

With only 21 active members of the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA) alive, the once exclusive art group that swore “To authentically preserve and perpetuate the culture of western life in fine art”, is but a dying breed of artists.  

Losing two key members in the last few years and most of them being mid-career or older, there will be a need to readdress the contemporary and living artists who are abiding by these same philosophies and holding true to a preservation of culture.

This is where Boerne, Texas comes into the story of a continued conservancy.  One such artist that strives to capture and preserve this aesthetic is Boerne’s own Bill Scheidt.  Bill Scheidt is a level 5 certified Texas Professional Farrier (a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming, balancing and the placing of shoes on their hooves), and is a member of the Texas Professional Farriers Association. Interestingly, Bill Scheidt worked the horse route around Boerne from 1971 till about 1987, and still resides in Boerne. He was also the Farrier for what was previous - Fair Oaks Ranch, before it was a gated community on I-10 known as the same name.

With such an extended and significant career around horses it is not surprising the subject matter that garners Scheidt’s attention. He has studied at the Scottsdale Artists School; taken workshops with: artist, Roy Andersen; CAA artist, Joe Beeler; CAA artist, Jim Norton; CAA artist, R. S. Riddick and Bruce Greene; and attended various other Cowboy Artists of America workshops.

Bill Scheidt is also a Signature Member of the Artists for Conservation Foundation, “Supporting wildlife and habitat conservation, biodiversity, sustainability, and environmental education through art that celebrates our natural heritage.”

Stoic in his intentions, Scheidt is a revered and well respected artist by several Native American tribes for his renditions of Native American Culture. Showcasing the unique characteristics of members of the Taos Pueblo (Tiwa or Tewah tribe) and Apache tribe, Scheidt is true to form in capturing this indigenous way of life.  Also as a sign of gratitude and respect for his craft, Scheidt was presented a highly prized woven Navajo blanket by Native American, Joanna Purley which is on display in his personal studio – as a reminder of his servitude to an entrusted legacy.

Bill Scheidt is a current or former member of the American Plains Artists, Oil Painters of America and has exhibited in the Museum of Western Art.
 

In “Closed for Winter”, Scheidt delivers a riveting landscape that depicts the isolated life of the Native Americans during the winter months. Snow brings a renewed sense of survival, a man vs. nature attitude juxtaposed by a harmony with the natural environment. Scheidt’s skyline glows with majestic auroras that are laden heavy with the never ending threat of the impending snowfall. Backlit by a fading sun, the teepee’s angular pol lines collect the fallen wintery and wet blanket, creating a cold exterior contrasted by the warm interior. Snow covered trees, a barren landscape and an exposed and naked smaller wooden armature reflect the nostalgic quality of the Wild West through a cold seasonal bliss in all its majestic glory.

Bill Scheidt's artwork is now available at J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art

© Gabriel Diego Delgado

Gallery Director

J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

830-816-5106

Newly Rediscovered/ Uncovered Spanish Underworlds by Jose Vives-Atsara

A Delightful Duo of Unique Cavernous Compositions of Cave Drach

(Circa. 1962-1964 and valued at $22,000.00/each)

Available for purchase at J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Cuevas del Drach and Cave Mallorca, two large semi-abstract paintings by San Antonio painter, Jose Vives-Atsara bring a unique underworld and cavernous depiction of hidden beauty; undoubtedly an  uncharacteristic subject matter in his internationally acclaimed body of work that spans 60 plus years.

Measuring an impressive 30 x 40”, the stalagmites and stalactites, or fringes of Manton, capture the seductive secrets of this major international tourist attraction. Painted as a commission to one of his collectors spotlighting the Caves of Balearic Islands, on the east coast of Mallorca, Spain, these unique treasures blend Vives-Atasara’s signature color palette with his sweeping but refined palette knife technique. 

Cave Drach is an exquisite and exotic experience in its own right, host to one of the largest underground lakes in the world complete with 10 minute orchestra concerts.  However, coupled with the artistic prowess of Vives-Atsara – the ethereal atmospheres draw us in, entering into a dark and sonorous milieu.

 

In these two paintings, the only pair ever done of this location by the artist, Vives-Atasa treats the subject in relation to the background very different with alternating dark and light backgrounds.  With a gloomy, shadowy and cryptic dullness in one, we are confronted by our own insecure-ness on continuing our journey further into this superb subterranean while juxtaposing a purposefully lighted sensibility in the other, he guides us with artistic generosity;  illuminating and uncovering an unimaginable underworld.

Cuevas del Drach and Cave Mallorca are priced at $22,000 framed.  These unusual and matchless paintings by Jose Vives-Atsara are estimated to be painted sometime around 1962-1964.  This timeframe would be reflective of his accession to celebrated lecture and instructor at Incarnate Word College, San Antonio Art League and the Witte Memorial Museum;  a major formative and important few years of an internationally celebrated career.  

Only a few years later in 1968, his work was presented as gifts to Arnulfo Arias Madrid the President of Panama and Luis Pietri, the President of Venezuela.

© Gabriel Diego Delgado

Gallery Director

J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

830-816-5106

Gina Hampton (Boerne/ Fair Oaks Jewelry Maker) Arrives with Bold Designs and a renounced Fine Art Quality

Gina Hampton

Boerne/ Fair Oaks Jewelry Maker

Bold Designs with a Fine Art Quality

Gina Hampton has a strong history of success at JR Mooney Gallery in Boerne.  For less than five years people have come to expect and receive work of integrity in each piece.  Gina’s designed the spring and summer compositions with lightness and airiness in concept and detail. Necklaces having single strands of beads - some in aquatic color themes; others having images of turtles and frogs were harbingers of the outdoors, patio parties and casual times enjoyed during summer.  Now that fall has come and nature offers coolness and boldness of color, Gina’s artistic expression has responded to the change of apparel enjoyed by many.

Gina Hampton, Boerne’s own artisan in metals and semi-precious stones, has welcomed the fall and winter season with designs that are thoughtfully composed and appropriate for day into evening wear.  One-of-a-kind jewelry and willingness to adjust lengths and change sets to individual needs are welcome and show the personal commitment to service that is rare, but, typical of her thoughtfulness.

Most recent compositions include layering of contrasting materials.  One design includes nautilus shells, Druze, crystal, pearls and amber.   Gina once again shows how very knowledge and insightful she is and respectful of natural color and minerals.  Another necklace inspired by large chunks of flesh toned agate is reminiscent of the attention to detail and Gina’s understanding of jewelry that is intended to enhance the wearer.

At its most subtle level  Gina is aware of jewelry and the story it tell of travels, the search for quality that sustains the test of time, or personal value system.   Weather it is a gift to oneself, a family member, or loved one, careful thought has been addressed and the personal connection will come full circle.

©Betty Houston

Art Consultant

JR Mooney Galleries, Boerne

830.816.5106

Contemporary Artists to JR Mooney Galleries, Boerne

For Immediate Release:

11-19-2013

Gabriel Diego Delgado

Gallery Director

J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne/ 830.816.5106

Is the Hill Country ready for Contemporary Art; its idiocies and scholarly art theories-- its hard edge abstractions and minimal ephemerals?

J.R. Mooney Galleries, a nationally recognized Texas Vintage and Impressionism Gallery of South Texas is proud to announce a new selection of Midcareer and Established Contemporary Artists to their Boerne Gallery location; including Russell Stephenson (San Antonio), Cody Vance (San Antonio), Sidney Sinclair (Boerne), and Guus Kemp (Houston/Netherlands).

The Texas Hill Country has often been the known for Bluebonnet paintings, Western depictions of cowboy life, wildlife mixed with landscapes, traditional holiday painters and watercolorists capturing the quaint essence of small town aesthetics. Boerne, Texas is no different, with several Fine Art Galleries that span a wide range of genres; including artist’s studios, co-ops, coffeehouses, boutiques, and other venues that show high and low quality of art – hometown heroes to regional and national recognitions; Texas to Santa Fe aesthetics.

Geographically, Boerne is the perfect location nestled between San Antonio and Fredericksburg.  However, both cities support a larger art community and flourishing creative-based economy; granting growth to international art markets, while Boerne has not diversified its collective pallet yet. . However, only up until now Contemporary Art had been void in this small town with a “town unique as its name.” Traditional art has laid the groundwork to attract clients from all over Texas, now J.R. Mooney Galleries-Boerne is showing them a new set of rules founded in 195-60’s Art Movements.  

With ever expanding gated communities, exclusive neighborhoods, younger family demographic and changing design markets and trends, Contemporary Art cannot be ignored!

San Antonio’s Russell Stephenson brings a youthful energy, a polished contemporary aesthetic while maintaining roots in traditional approach.  His art captures a sense of divine intervention, one that shapes the world around us; the gold accents, the earthy tones, and heavens and the horizons- each combining to conjure up a transcendent typography that radiates perfection.  In his Panoramic Texas Series we can meditate on the horizontal fixations that represent such cosmic altruisms, rich with beauty but toned with hues variegated into a hazy manifestation.

Cody Vance, a retired Air Force Veteran and military textbook/manual illustrator turned Stone Carver delivers highly refined and silken exotic stone carvings that begged to be touched in their highly polished essences. Amoebic and organic shapes are surprisingly accented with playful swirls, twists and loops that draw our eye around the fullness and study compositions, each masterful and lyrical in its own right. Reminiscent of abstract bodily structures; hip bones, organs, and the like we see a direct lineage to his past life as a draftsman.

Feathery wisps of painterly attributes lick the canvas, as Sidney Sinclair delivers ephemeral landscapes with muted palettes of color that lays claim to a new beginning.  She gives us a hazy dreamland of internal psychology mixed with a vaporous scenery; impressionistic pictorials that are executed with due diligences of a trained painter with years of study that delivers a tranquil quaintness. Sidney Sinclair also draws on extensive art historical connotations of Catholic Iconology mixed with her personal story to create contemporary geometric images that seem to be deliberate with religious overtones, while at other times missing the overt religious reference and relishes in the pure abstraction of symmetrical shapes. 

Guus Kemp, a modern day Abstract Expressionist, allows himself a “painterly” freedom of color exploration coupled with a highly intense paint overlay technique. Multiple layers of dense color collide on the canvas, vibrantly fleeting for spatial ownership of any and all space on the large scale abstractions.  Evident is the artist’s hand and fluid body movements that create such lines, mark making, and gestural punches.  These overall composition paintings often include striking streaks of thick impasto-esque oil paint traversing over each other, creating skewed cadences of deliberate nonlinear arrangements.  Moreover, his understanding of color theory is articulately displayed with an often self-restricted color pallet, making for vibrant edges- yellows to blues and reds to greens. In a multitude of his paintings, Guus uses a sweeping gesture of profuse paint, exploding over the canvases, with a possible and hypothetical allusion to a botanical reference or self-guided cosmic inference.

Who:

J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art Boerne, Boerne

What:

Addition of Mid-Career and Established Contemporary Artists to the Signature Traditional and Impressionistic Art Gallery of the JR Mooney Brand and Identity

When:

Starting November 2013

Where:

JR Mooney Galleries of Fine Art 305 S. Main Street Boerne, TX 78006 (830) 816-5106

For more Contemporary Artist and signature traditional artwork of JR Mooney Galleries, Boerne, contact Gallery Director- Gabriel Diego Delgado at 830.816.5106

Guus Kemp, a Painter's Painter and his abstract expressionism

J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne is Proud to make available the artwork of Guus Kemp (Netherlands/ Houston)!!!

(Here is an excerpt written a few years ago by Gallery Director, Gabriel Diego Delgado -- describing Guus's work)

Guus Kemp

Abstract Expressionism and a Painter’s Painter

By: Gabriel Diego Delgado

J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne

(Appeared in La Prensa Newspaper May 15, 2011)

Clement Greenberg, the infamous Abstract Art Critic once said, “Abstract Expressionism was the epitome of aesthetic value”, a reference to the heyday of abstract art in the 1950’s-60.  Clement’s analytical approach and critique of a Post-World War II American based art movement became the basis for many artists as they rallied around this more ‘pure’ art making process. He was more interested in the artist’s physical mark making on a flat two dimensional canvas; something being explored by the likes of second generation and post Abstract Expressionist painters like - Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Norman Bluhm, and many many others.

Fast forward fifty years, holding true to these sophisticated thoughts of pure emotion, abstraction, color rhythm and movement; and you have the contemporary painters following in the footsteps of these great masters.  Guus Kemp is undoubtedly one of those painters. 

An artist whose art career highlights and stoically denotes a visual reference to all the tangible and exceptionally grandeur theories of Abstract Expressionism, Guus allows himself a “painterly” freedom of color exploration coupled with a highly intense paint overlay technique. Multiple layers of dense color collide on the canvas, vibrantly fleeting for spatial ownership of any and all space on the large scale abstractions.  Evident is the artist’s hand and fluid body movements that create such lines, mark making, and gestural punches.  These overall composition paintings often include striking streaks of thick impasto-esque oil paint traversing over each other, creating skewed cadences of deliberate nonlinear arrangements.  Moreover, his understanding of color theory is articulately displayed with an often self-restricted color pallet, making for vibrant edges- yellows to blues and reds to greens. In a multitude of his paintings, Guus uses a sweeping gesture of profuse paint, exploding over the canvases, with a possible and hypothetical allusion to a botanical reference or self-guided cosmic inference.

In many of Guus Kemp’s Abstract Expressionistic paintings your eye inevitably follows a gestural movement of a particular color, however, his calculating use of pallet knife helps to carve out hard edged paint slices in an otherwise fluid color composition applique. With an overall color conformation, one cannot help but reflect on the abstract artist predecessors like Pollock, de Kooning and Twombly when viewing Guus’s paintings.  His admirable and diligent ascension into Abstract Expressionism has helped propel him into an esteemed artistic genre; one held in high reverence by many art scholars and painters alike.  

Understanding how and when to make the gestural mark and the manipulation of paint as a medium is something intuitive in this abstract thought process.  Visually evident is Guus’s innate ability to impregnate his canvas with organic shapes of greens and blues, systematically embodied in an overall composition made up of an array of red and yellow explosions.  His dignified abstract manipulation uses color and paint as a visual bout between the artist’s vision and the creation itself; each volleying for supreme command.  Embodying the Greenburg-ian notion of “Artist as Shaman”, Guus plays the role of spiritual visionary, drawing the audience into a world unlike their own;  one of color as a belief, faith or creed- channeled by actions, reactions, manipulations, cuts, curves, punches, evocations, and visual linguistics; each one bringing with it renowned sense of painterly expertise.

 Often quoting his early exposure to European artists in the 1960’s-70, Guus’s insistence of this timely introduction shaped his artistic career.  His unique style indicates an indulgence of an American born Art Movement {Abstract Expressionism}- one of dynamic color, explosive gestures and momentous scale. 

©Gabriel Diego Delgado

San Antonio's Fine Art Holiday Buying Guide in NHOME Magazine

San Antonio's Fine Art Holiday Buying Guide in NHOME Magazine Nov./ Dec. 2013 View this email in your browser See the New Nov./ Dec. edition of NHOME Magazine to see a wonderful article on Fine Art Holiday Gift ideas.. A Guide of Where to buy Fine Art in the Greater San Antonio and Boerne areas.. Plus, Fine Art collectibles for that perfect present!

--"San Antonio is rich and alive with artists making work that is both affordable and gift-able in the sense of wall hangings, tabletop sculptures, holiday gifts, to hand- made crafts.  From San Antonio’s First Friday, Second Saturdays, Second Fridays and Third Saturdays to art-walks in Tobin Hill to Beacon Hill, Art-crawls in Southtown to Boerne – galleries and studios are open to public by appointment or regular hours granting access to these culturally diverse troves for holiday purchase.  Plus, galleries like J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art offer complimentary gift wrapping included with purchase, making the often intimidating gallery experience for any novice a rather appealing one-stop-shop, comparable to big box department stores. " -excerpt from the article by Gabriel Diego Delgado Read the full article here: www.issuu.com/nhome

Fine Art for the Holidays By: Gabriel Diego Delgado, Gallery Director, JR Mooney Galleries, Boerne Fine art is often bought and sold as a blue chip expense; an item reserved for special occasions, events, openings, and auctions. However, Fine art should be considered as a gift for loved ones to share in the artistic experience, a perfect present for any occasion, but more importantly the ever encroaching end-of-the-year festivities and holidays. Art can be a reflection of the buyer paying tribute to the new owner with a personal touch, a purchase that holds a certain integrity that store bought and mass produced items do not offer, such as a classy acquisition that not only supports the local economic climate but adds ever increasing revenue to the Greater San Antonio creative economy – by placing the dollars directly in to the hands of small businesses and artistic entrepreneurs. San Antonio is rich and alive with artists making work that is both affordable and gift-able in the sense of wall hangings, tabletop sculptures, holiday gifts, to hand- made crafts. From San Antonio’s First Friday, Second Saturdays, Second Fridays and Third Saturdays to art-walks in Tobin Hill to Beacon Hill, Art-crawls in Southtown to Boerne – galleries and studios are open to public by appointment or regular hours granting access to these culturally diverse troves for holiday purchase. Plus, galleries like J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art offer complimentary gift wrapping included with purchase, making the often intimidating gallery experience for any novice a rather appealing one-stop-shop, comparable to big box department stores. But, with the ever changing climate of where to purchase art through studio or gallery, you must know where to begin. Several new venues have gained a certain highlight in today’s San Antonio Art community, stores and studios that offer a wide variety of gift ideas, fine art selections, and handmade crafts. Mockingbird Gallery and Studio is located at 1420 South Alamo, Bldg B, Ste 108 in downtown San Antonio offers is a new art venue run and owned by San Antonio Artist, Paula Cox and Craftswoman, Jane Bishop. Mockingbird offers vintage jewelry to screen printed, custom decorated and upholstered furniture to fine art treasures. Collectable handmade and funky pincushions settle in next to wood cuts of Paula Cox’s line drawing animals, while ceramics, recycled tin cuts, and letterpress cards, notes, and envelopes scatter the store shelves like shabby chic accents; all for sale in a location central to the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum. Mockingbird’s pincushions filled with sand and lavender and various artistic figures range from $25-$48, while their porcelain ceramics by Dim Sum range from $45 to $65. Look for steals on their vintage jewelry which is available for $40- $65, while custom Fat Cat Jewelry, recycled cut tins, earrings, and bracelets are reasonably priced at $36-$60. A breath of fresh air can be found at Zollie Glass Studio, a new contemporary fine art glass store and studio located at 1428 S. Presa #1, in the Blue Star complex. Owner, Jake Zollie Harper opened Zollie Glass on the heels of the remodeled arts complex that once housed Stella Haus Gallery, Joan Grona Gallery, Cactus Bra Space, Three Walls and others during his “first” First Friday in August 2013. Since then he has hosted various workshops, guest artists, hands-on demonstrations and the spontaneous pop up events. Look for Zollie Glass Studio to have a special Christmas sale complete with extended holiday hours. At Zollie Glass, Jake always has a variety of glass artists selling their wares, with a stable roster of 5 to 7 glassblowers making work. Fine Art Glass is the perfect gift for those who might shy away from painting purchases with these precious handmade items completing any gift giving occasion. Prices are a flux of items for twenty dollars to four thousand. Cleverly priced clear tumblers range from $25-$30, while signatory "Ice Cups” are $80. Artistic glass sculptures and the coined “spores” sculptures range in size and price from $250 to $3,000. Ask about the custom-made housewares and lighting cover options, including the cherished glass chandeliers at $3,750. San Antonio painter Russell Stephenson offers affordable and small scale abstract landscape paintings that capture the pure essence of his signature aesthetic. Gold, earth tones, and deliberate mark-making mix with minimal compositions that are tied to notions of the sublime. Stephenson’s landscapes complement any color palette, room décor or interior design. With approachable imagery and easily digestible color theory, his work is a no worry contemporary art purchase which will no doubt dazzle the beginning collector to the seasoned aficionado. His “Panoramic Texas Series” painting are moderately priced at $600 each, granting access to any buyer a chance to own, collect and cherish this San Antonio painter. Russell Stephenson’s art can be seen at AnArte Gallery in San Antonio as well as J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art, Boerne. Texas regional minimalist Louis Vega Trevino’s art work has graced the buildings of Main Plaza downtown San Antonio, his strip paintings hung in Terminal B at the San Antonio Airport and he has been creating art for the who’s who of architectural firms and their clients for over 20 years. Trevino’s stripe paintings and geometric post minimal expressions are play on color theory, linear perfections mixed with automatic geometry. Bands of color shimmer shake and vibrate next to complementary hues, making for effective submissions by the viewer to respond to simple color pairing, a shamanistic approach with a minimal aesthetic. Lines, bands, and stripes go vertical, horizontal, or sideways; often overlapping in an effective composition or rhythm that would accent even the most minimal interior. Accentuating hard interior visual cues and ostentatious lines of overpowering window dressings, countertops, furniture and ceilings, Trevino’s work adds a contemporary charm with bold accents of color that play off any inflexible interior motifs and architectural designs. His small paintings available for the holidays range from $250-$300.

Russel Stephenson to The Texas Hill Country

Russell Stephenson 

Panoramic Texas Series

J.R. Mooney Galleries, Boerne

Bastrop fires, unrelenting skylines, sublime mentalities, conceptual collectiveness, universal experiences, and intuitive automatism all play a role in Russell Stephenson’s new paintings titled, “Panoramic Texas Series”.  A tribute to the Texas sky, the flat plains of Midland/Odessa, the rolling Hill Country, and the wide open plains to the Pan-handle typography, Stephenson depicts all that is our great state of Texas in minimally rendered but systematically charged abstracted landscapes.

New to J.R. Mooney Galleries, Russell Stephenson is one of the first Contemporary Texas Painters to be accessioned onto the J.R Mooney roster of artists in the J.R. Mooney Galleries of Fine Art Boerne, in a christened program called JRM Lab.

In  JRM Lab (a strike to bring more successful and midcareer contemporary artists to the Hill Country)-- Stephenson brings a youthful energy, a polished contemporary aesthetic while maintaining roots in traditional approach.  His art captures a sense of divine intervention, one that shapes the world around us; the gold accents, the earthy tones, and heavens and the horizons- each combining to conjure up a transcendent typography that radiates perfection.

In his Panoramic Texas Series we can meditate on the horizontal fixations that represent such cosmic altruisms, rich with beauty but toned with hues variegated into a hazy manifestation.

We are ultimately engulfed by the subtleness that engulfs the gestalt of the work and reflects the tranquility of the world around us.

By: Gabriel Diego Delgado
Gallery Director
JR J R Mooney Galleries Of Fine Art, Boerne