The Winter Holiday Art Market

The Heights district of Houston is divided into four roughly equal parts by the east-west traverse of Interstate 10 and the North-South run of Studemont Street. Three of the four quadrants, contain residences that have become desirable places to live because of the proximity to downtown and the ‘gentrification’ that has taken place in the area. The fourth quadrant, the South East part of the Heights, is the closest to downtown, and is the area containing warehouses and factories (including the Sunbeam bread factory) that provided work to many of the working class citizens who used to live in the Heights, before they were priced out by the young professional who wanted a house close to downtown in an affordable area.

One of the vacant warehouses has been bought by the Spacetaker, a non-profit Artist Resource Center in Houston’s First Ward, to provide young, emerging and mid-career artists with resources and tools that help them advance and manage their professional careers. Through their Artist Resource Center at the warehouse (2101 Winter Street) and via their websites, they give artists access to practical, professional services, including bi-weekly newsletters, low cost/high value PR and marketing, digital photography services, current technology, online portfolio space, and other career–building resources.

The warehouse was converted into a series of studios that artists can rent. The first weekend in December, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the wide corridors and open spaces alongside and between the studios on the first floor are occupied by artists displaying and offering for sale, a variety of art-works. There were artists selling pottery and ceramic bowls and tea pots, one artist selling wooden bowls and rings made from a variety of woods he had turned on a lathe, three or four artists selling brooches and necklaces and earrings and other jewelry and a dozen or so artists selling paintings in a variety of mediums.

Perhaps this is symbolic of the art market in Houston, but in all the paintings on show there wasn’t a single landscape or portrait or still life. Every painting on display and for sale fell into the abstract category. Some of the abstracts bore a passing resemblance to flowers or an occasional face, but the vast majority could not be tied to any tangible form. This is not a criticism, just an observation, though admittedly I went to the Art Market looking for a painting or paintings depicting Houston for my library.

I am not qualified to judge whether or not abstract art is good or not. There were some pieces that provided interesting contrasts of color and other pieces that had nice form and layout. It was a very interesting evening looking at the art and talking to the artists and we found a series of paintings that we thought would go perfectly with the Bosco Curich abstract in my den. So I took the thought home and thought more about it overnight, then next morning sat and stared at the Bosco and the space beside it on the wall and made a decision to go back and get the three paintings we’d seen the night before.

WHAM opened at noon on Saturday and we arrived at about 12:30 and walked straight to the artist’s table with the paintings. The paintings were not there. The artist told me a lady had bought them at 12:05 today after seeing them last night and then measuring the space on her wall.

I was, however, convinced I wanted those paintings so the artist – Marcela Garcia Bonini – offered to paint me three more that would be very similar. So once again I am to get paintings painted specially for me. These are called Time Lines VII, VIII and IX. Each painting is 9” x 12” and the three paintings should be mounted on the wall in a vertical line.

The adventure continues.

These are Time Lines III, IV and V. My paintings will be similar. I'll post the actual paintings when I receive them.