The Art House on Routh opened Friday with work by David McCullough, Michael Tichansky, Lawrence Stafford, Jeff A Green, Byron Lacy and Daniel Sellers. It's at 2722 Routh Street. Open 5-9 Weddy-Friday, noon-9 Saturday and noon till 5 Sundays, giving The MAC's 'only place for art after dark' claim a run.
 

We went by early for looking at art, then came back in the thick of it to see the place packed with people and do some socializing. We liked a lot of what we saw there.

We both especially admired Byron Lacy's enigmatic media mix assemblages on their own disheveled furniture-like stands.

Kathy thought Urubamba, a brilliantly colored, 72-inch square acrylic and mixed media on canvas by David McCullough (husband of whom was listed as the gallery's director) was perfect on the far wall of the room with the fireplace, where it set an exciting tone to the new gallery. David said the title was an Inca musical term.

(I've been hoping that title for Barbara West a while now. Congrats.) She, of course, continues as the admina- whatever at Creative Arts Center days.

Art House proprietor is David Nowicki, and they all hatched the notion after sitting around drinking and talking about how it oughtta be late one night late last year. Now it is.

Kathy also liked several large, round marble paintings by Lawrence Stafford, which she called jewel tone beauties. In fact, she says, the whole gallery is stunning in off white walls, glorious primary colors, surprising shapes and textures, where Jeff Green's wall assemblages are the quietest works there.
 

I gloried in finding so many new pieces by long time DARts Supporting Member (We're working on a Member page for him.) Jeff Green. I particularly liked his Croquet media mix and this winged sculpture hung on the back of a door.

As I developed the above image, I couldn't help think about us hanging art things in all kinds of strange places in another art house -- at DARts' 1026 Tranquilla show last month. As DARts Member Sheila Cunningham noted at the Art House opening, we did it first...
 

Wandering geographically challenged around Upper Oak Lawn, we discovered this marvelous bit of architectural texture. It calls itself the Kilgore Law Center MADI Museum & Gallery. Essentially, it's a new wing on an old brick building partially refaced with bright vinyl and reflective panels. I focused in on one of the later above. We don't yet know what kind of gallery, but it's a colorful start.
 

 

We also visited Craighead-Green, where we liked Birmingham artists Dori & Joseph DeCamillis' marvelous, little (2, 3 and 4 by 6-inch) oils on copper of traveling images captured as they drove their Winnebago around the U.S. Each had a thick, black frame that set them off wonderfully. Painter Kathy asked: they used copper, because it allows super fine detail that canvas or even board wouldn't.

JR was also taken with Dallas artist Marla Zigler's splay of lovely shapes and shadows. He wants wireless stereo speakers like them.
 

Kathy's just finished an interview/story about/with Bill Kysor now showing in the front room at The MAC. His son Chris' paintings are in the project room.
 

 

While visiting The MAC our second trip to get titles and more photos, I wandered around inside the offices for the first time in many years. I was startled and amazed at the quality and variety of fine art -- usually humorous, but other stuff, too -- much of it by local artists. Leaving the building, I chanced to look in a window to find a vivid Valton Tyler over somebody's desk.

So, the people at The MAC do know good local art when they see it. They enjoy it in the privacy of their offices. They just won't show it in their big galleries unless the artist has left town and made it big -- and someone else pays for it. Very odd behavior indeed for an org founded to show lesser known Dallas artists.
 

I finally posted a little story about tiny detailed art from DARts Subscriber Ellen Frances Tuchman's home prevue for her Jung Center show listed on Calendar Page One. I had lost the notes to that story while I obsessed on producing...

... Two show proposals for the Bath House:

One show is a "Carefully curated (by Kathy and me) DallasArtsRevue Supporting Membership Exhibition, complete with a Salon de Refuse for pieces not chosen for the Main gallery and a video showing every piece entered. Each winning artist would show three pieces in the big gallery, and the opening would feature some performance.
 

The other would be an exhibition of my ongoing project, The White Rock Lake Journal, featured on site. The journal includes documentation of my favorite inner-city lake and park via digital photos that change every week or so. I was out there in the snow last week taking more pix.

Neither show is a sure thing, of course. When I delivered my stack of proposals, David said they'd got 25 this year, plus a few of the 60 from last year that hadn't been selected. Cross fingers, pray or whatever you think moves the Universe. I'll post text and maybe some pix from both proposals... soon....
 

I have in hand snail mailed slides, e-mail attached and CD-ROM contained digital images for several Supporting Member pages. Climbing out from under the Bath House proposal binge which wholly contained my life the last couple weeks, I'm struggling through Mercury Retrograde with all those images. So, soon there should be at least 4 new and renewed Member Pages. Stay tuned.

EAT ART was named for a fragment of the bumper sticker proclaiming "a grEAT ART museum for a great city" back when Harry Parker was trying to win a bond election to build "the new DMA." That campaign failed, but obviously, another one succeeded. We're still waiting for the great art.