The Texas drought of 2011 will be remembered as the worst in state history. With only one third the normal rainfall, some rivers and lakes literally evaporated. Both Houston and Dallas had 24 consecutive days of temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. The brutally hot temperatures and dry conditions encouraged forest and grass fires all over the state that scorched 3.6 million acres of land (the size of Connecticut). More than 1,000 homes were destroyed and countless animals died. By April, the drought had become so serious that Governor Rick Perry issued a proclamation encouraging all Texans to "pray for rain." But conditions worsened, and by June FEMA declared Texas a natural disaster area. In October, rains finally came to most areas, but relief was brief and inadequate. The state still remains in a drought, which some predict will last for five years or more. Total drought-related costs so far exceed $5 billion. *Daniel Parker is a composer, conductor, pianist, and resident of San Antoino, Texas. Having suffered the 2011 Texas drought and daily pleas, prayers, and forecasts for rain from friends, politicians, and meteorologists, he composed Rain Dance. Rain Dance is a freeform composition for full orchestra characterizing the devastation of the drought and the joy a little rain can bring, underscored by perhaps the oldest rain incantation, the American Indian Rain Dance.
The Photography of Ansel Adams
from http://www.archives.gov/research/ansel-adams/
American photographer Ansel Adams was born on 20 February 1902 in San Francisco. He was a talented child—a musician, not a photograher. Although he could be still and focused at a piano, he had a hard time in school. Education without either meaning or excitement is impossible. He says, "I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork. One day, as I sat fidgeting in class, the whole situation suddenly appeared very ridiculous to me. I burst into raucous peals of uncontrolled laughter; I could not stop. The class was first amused, then scared. I stood up, pointed at the teacher, and shrieked my scorn, hardly taking breath in between my howling paroxysms. To my mother’s dismay, I was escorted home and remained under house arrest for a week, until my patient father concluded that my entry into yet another school would be useless. Instead, I was to study at home under his guidance."
Ansel Adams-2
Ansel Adams-1
George Nelson's The Clocks
At The McNay Art Museum McNay Collection Southwest Art www.mcnayart.org
With the McNay’s reopening, new installations appear on the second floor of the Main Collection Galleries. In the Hamon Galleries, visitors enjoy an expanded presentation of the museum’s Southwestern collections. Past Semmes intern Monica Boulton has extensively researched the McNay’s collection of Southwest art in preparation for the new exhibitions.
Monica Boulton’s investigation has led to learning more about the museum’s founder, Marion Koogler McNay. "I discovered that Mrs. McNay had an eclectic approach to collecting," says Boulton. "She not only championed modern European and American art by amassing a superb collection of paintings and works on paper, but she also assembled a remarkable group of American Indian art and artifacts, as well as New Mexican Spanish colonial art. In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, during Mrs. McNay’s extensive travels to the Southwest, she acquired Navajo jewelry and textiles, Pueblo pottery and baskets, New Mexican Spanish-style bultos and retablos, and Rio Grande textiles." Boulton’s premise in installing the collection is based on cultural distinctions.
Current & Future Exhibitions El Greco Rediscovered Opening January 2012
The McNay Art Museum’s Head of Christ, part of Marion Koogler McNay’s founding collection, was for many years considered a studio version or later copy from a painting by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541–1614). Recent conservation treatment has revealed the small painting’s quality, and scholarly research has identified it as an original study for the head of Christ in the Disrobing of Christ altarpiece in the cathedral of Toledo, Spain. Documentation of the conservation process and comparisons with other versions attributed to El Greco are the focus of this exhibition.
Baroque to Bauhaus: Designs from the Tobin Collection Wednesday, January 18 – Sunday, June 10, 2012 Baroque to Bauhaus connects theatre designs to the larger history of visual culture from the 1600s to the early 1900s. These two styles are the antithesis of one another, with the spare, clean lines of the Bauhaus challenging the painterly illusionism of the Baroque. The Baroque theme includes modern designs in an ornate mode by artists such as Alexandre Benois and Eugene Berman, along with designs from the 1600s–1700s by Giacomo Torelli and the Bibiena family. The Bauhaus theme focuses on artists affiliated with the German school that stressed unity of art, craft, and technology in the 1920s–1930s, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Grit Kallin- Fischer, as well as exponents of international Constructivism such as Alexandra Exter.
Gallery Nord of San Antonio Since 2006 focusing on contemporary art from local, national and international artists
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