It’s
a broad topic. This is the third completely different version I’ve
written for this presentation. All three are relevant, in the first
I talked only about literature, the second was general about the arts
all over Texas. In this version, I talk about what’s happening
in the arts in my corner of the state. Perhaps the microcosm reflects
the macrocosm.
At
Texas State University-San Marcos, the arts are booming. It’s
the visual arts that have taken the most recent and most dramatic advance.
After the recent completion of our new Art building, we have enrolled
this semester almost 1,000 majors in art and design. Our art faculty
is busy producing and showing its art: notable among these is Beverley
Penn in jewelry, Roger Colombik in sculpture, Jeffrey Dale in print
making, Michelle Conroy in ceramics, and Eric Weller in photography.
Photography
is also flourishing in the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican
Photography, housed atop the Alkek Library. The current exhibit show
the work of Jayne Hinds Bidaut, a native Texan. Recent exhibits featured
the work of Keith Carter, Kate Breakey, Rocky Schenck, and the founder
of the gallery, Bill Wittliff.
Adjacent
to the Wittliff Gallery is the Southwestern Writers Collection. One
recent exhibit shows the boom in detective fiction by Texas Writers
(bilbiography is available on line at the collection). The collection
is now displaying its holdings of works featured in Jan Reid’s
recent collection, Rio Grande. One of the writers featured in that display
is Dagoberto Gilb, one of the professor’s teaching in our graduate
program in creative writing leading to an M. F. A. Among the faculty
teaching the sixty five majors are Kathleen Peirce, Debra Monroe, Roger
Jones, Tom Grimes, and Steve Wilson, all active writers. Several of
our graduates have distinguished themselves with books. One, Mary Powell,
has just published her second novel, Galveston Rose, with TCU press.
One of our creative writing teachers, John Blair, recently won the Drue
Heinz award for his collection of short stories, American Standard.
Each year we have a guest writer to hold the Mitte chair in Creative
Writing. This year Barry Hannah is visiting. Previous writers have been
Tim O Brien, Ai, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Susan Hanson teaches our honors
nature writing class, and she published last year her collection of
nature essays, Icons of Loss and Grace, with Texas Tech University Press.
At
the Southwest Regional Humanities Center, directed by Mark Busby, we
publish Texas Books in Review and Southwestern American Literature.
We also sponsor readings by Texas writers. Just last week, Jim Sanderson
read from his new novel, Nevin’s History. Other recent readers
have been Walt McDonald, Robert Flynn, Oscar Casares, and Betty Adcock.
Sandra
Mayo of our theatre and dance department has edited and provided an
introduction to a collection of dramatist, Sterling Houston, called
Myth, Magic, and Farce: Four Multicultural Plays by Sterling Houston.
It will be published this spring by UNT press. Our dance faculty recently
recreated a landmark work of Erick Hawkins, directed by Katherine Duke,
Artistic Director of the Erick Hawkins Dance Foundation, with Louis
Kavouras of UNLV as the featured dancer.
The
music department has 425 majors including 65 graduate majors, and it
provides a wide range of musical performances from bluegrass to classical.
The next big event by them is The Opera Workshop’s presentation
of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief.
So
far me, the arts are flourishing, and I don’t even have to leave
San Marcos. But when I do, I find even more to see and hear nearby in
Austin and San Antonio. I love the Tapestry dance company performances
in Austin, a blend of tap, modern and ballet. And Austin Cabaret Theatre
showcases local talent along with bringing in such stars as UT grad,
Amanda McBroom, and Ann Hampton Calloway. But Austin lost its premier
local musical theatre company, Austin Musical Theatre, to bankruptcy.
The Zach Scott is thriving but on a smaller scale. Everyone knows about
Austin’s live music scene.
In
San Antonio, I can visit the Witte, my favorite museum. Recently opened
near Sunset Station is the Cameo Theatre, where I saw a wonderful performance
of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune recently. San Antonio has
been and is the home of several important small presses, Corona, Browder
Springs, Pecan Grove, and Wings.
And
I haven’t even mentioned the various writing groups and art groups
in the area. Nor do I have time to even mention much more going on in
the arts in these two cities.
If
as much is happening in the arts in other parts of Texas, then the state
of the arts in Texas is indeed excellent.