Art Scene

by Julia Hayden

Local Color

by Julia Hayden

In a job that I had, several jobs ago, my immediate boss was a transplant from North Carolina, and one of the things that he often noted was how deep was the Hispanic influence on just about everything in this part of Texas. It is, after all, the Borderlands, where two different cultures mix and meld so thoroughly and have done so for so long that those of us accustomed to it. Of course we should dine on breakfast tacos, and the supermarket carry every imaginable variety of salsa, and listen to conjunto music, and have in our vocabulary a smattering or more of Spanish. It’s just the way that things are  . . .  and sometimes it takes a recent transplant, like my old boss, to notice it in a significant way.

For me…

Our Riverwalk

by Julia Hayden

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the downtown Riverwalk is the heart of San Antonio – after the Alamo, it’s the other completely unique tourist attraction. Water, trees and skinny riverbank gardens in the heart of a high-rise city – not many other places like it, and all hail Robert Hugman, the architect-genius who conceived the idea of a riverbank promenade, lined with shops and adorned with bridges and gardens.

Water and plenty of it drove the establishment of a settlement and missions here in the first place: an oasis in what was otherwise near enough to a desert. Early San Antonio looked to the water, measured out careful amounts through the acequias, the irrigation ditches. By the mid-19th…

Personal Art

by Julia Hayden

Well, it is personal, the stuff that you hang on the wall, or put on the shelf to ornament the particular place where you live  . . .  and anything original and artistic, and not done by you or any member of your family  . . .  that’s even more personal. Seriously, I’d like to be a mega-best-selling author just so that I could afford to buy some of the original art that I have seen, here and there around San Antonio. I know that most of those artists would like very much to sell something to someone who can afford it, like me – so everyone would be happy. (Even more, I’d like to have a larger house with wall space enough to properly display those objects d’ art that I would like to buy, but one thing at a…

Carp Diem at the McNay

I love the old mansion, and the landscaped grounds at the McNay - sometimes it seems that any town or city with a certain level of accumulation of old money admixed with cultural appreciation has such a museum: a sprawling mansion, in a park-like setting, an eclectic art collection - or a collection of something - purchased by an original owner with sufficient taste and income. Southern California, for instance, has the Huntingdon, Descanso Gardens, and Indianapolis has the Lilly House  - and San Antonio has the McNay, at the corner of New Braunfels and the Austin Highway.

The mansion that Jessie Marion Koogler McNay Atkinson built is one of those splendid Jazz-age Spanish-style…

Art Appreciation in San Antonio's La Villita

For Christmas, I would like for someone to give me a t-shirt that says “As a matter of fact I am not a $#@!ing tourist, I live here!” - but my daughter Blondie says that would be rather too hostile. And what brought that on? Oh, just the experience of going downtown at midweek, and having completed the necessary errand early, deciding to prowl the little art galleries and shops in La Villita, instead. La Villita is a collection of very old houses, very nearly the oldest in San Antonio, most of which were restored over the last thirty or forty years or so; electricity and plumbing being added to them with considerable difficulty. A good few have very low…

Created Tuesday, 19 June 2007 09:37

Guadulupe Cultural Arts Center

Written by Randy Watson

 The city of San Antonio is known for many things - great food, wonderful colonial architecture, and a rich history - but its burgeoning dedication to the arts is quickly making it one of the most important cities for Latino artists in the United States. San Antonio is home to some of the finest museums in the state, and has long been home to artisans, craftsmen, and artists of all sorts. The city\'s Latino community makes up the backbone of the community, and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is one such organization that certainly does its part to keep San Antonio\'s art scene thriving and relevant.

The center was formed in 1980, and since then has…