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A Personal Reflection
By Deborah Allison, Alpine artist
Endlessly changing views. Dramatic sunrises and sunsets. Puffy, gentle
clouds turning into fierce thunderheads. Soft evening lighting and clear, sharp,
noon sun, bleaching out the grasses. And this year, terrific rains, so the
grasses are plentiful and at the moment quite emerald green.
Landscape painters are inspired to try to capture the vastness, the air, the
vibration of the place. Even artists who aren’t landscape painters are moved
by this area. We are all influenced by the spiritual quality of the earth and find
it adds an undefinable element to our artwork.
Going beyond the sheer physical beauty of nature, there is the history.
Not just the forts, the cowboy stories and the adobe buildings, all
tremendous subjects in themselves, but there have been artists in this area
since the indigenous people painted and carved on the rock walls. Areas in
the Seminole Canyon State Park have incredible color figures possibly
painted about 7000 years ago. In fact, some of the current exhibiting artists
in the area are specifically inspired by the rock art and use the imagery and
symbols in their pieces.
A few thousand years later, the local teacher’s college had a very
successful and well considered art colony taught by many of Texas’ more
famous artists such as Xavier Gonzalez and Julius Woeltz. This program
attracted painters to the area each summer to learn contemporary
techniques in the inspirational region of the high desert. This program ran
from 1932 to 1950, but the influence lingers in the current and very vital Art
Department of the Sul Ross State University. Today’s art students display
their work at the gallery in the Francois Fine Art Building on campus and are
active with the SRSU Art Club.
The forties also brought influences of World War II to the area. At Fort
D.A. Russell in Marfa, German prisoners of war were housed in barracks
where they spent their time painting murals on the adobe walls. The
International Women’s Foundation worked to restore and preserve these
landscape murals. Open to the public, these works convey the sense of
isolation these men felt here in the Chihuahuan desert as well as a fascination
for the unfamiliar hills and plants of the area.
More recently, contemporary Minimalist artist Donald Judd was seduced
Top: Catchlight Gallery, Alpine, Texas; Bottom: Judith Breuske in Gage Gardens. Photos
by Deborah Allison
BIG BEND GALLERIES AND ARTISTS / 2017 7