Another Year, Another Artcrawl

Robert Boyd

I've been going to Artcrawl for several years. Some things are always the same, evolving slightly over the years. Like this little dilapidated house at the corner of McKee and Nance.



That's how it looked in 2010. Then in 2012, someone had added this sign to it.



This year, it looked like this:



I look forward to taking a picture of it every year. But let's be honest--it's slowly deteriorating. And that was the feeling of Artcrawl this year. For example, every year I've gone to Artcrawl, the building on Richey Street where Oxheart is located always has had a big bunch of exhibiting artists in a large central room. This year, nothing:



At least the tattoo parlor next to Oxheart had some art up--not to mention some tattoo artists at work.



Not only were there fewer venues for art this year, there were a lot fewer people. I hope that this is purely a result of the weather--cold, windy and damp. I hope this isn't a trend because one of the very great values I've see with Artcrawl is that in past years it has always drawn in a large, diverse audience. I go to art events every week and usually see the same people at them (and even within the events and openings I attend, the audience is segmented--there is little overlap between people who attend openings at Colquitt St. galleries and people who show up for El Rincón Social shows). But we can't forget that Artcrawl is just another "entertainment choice," and on a grey drizzly cold day, people may choose not to walk around a bunch of unheated old warehouses.

Mother Dog Studios is the driving force behind Artcrawl and they always have something special in their studios for the event. This year was no different. They had a show of "snake"-based art and included in this was an actual snake wrangler who brought his snakes and let people handle them.



That's where I saw painter Bas Poulos, talking with a lady snake wrangler who was showing off their collection of venomous snakes commonly found in the Houston are. Yikes.



Poulos, a retired Rice University art professor, had a couple of pieces in the snake show.


Bas Poulos paintings

He told me that his model was for some reason reluctant to model with her nipples showing, so they taped them like so. I replied that taped nipples were a thousand times dirtier than visible nipples.

In the same room as these paintings, a pair of air-brush artists were body-painting a cobra onto a very patient young woman who didn't seem to mind 1) that there were dozens of people taking phone photos and 2) that it was fucking cold in the unheated studio.



John Runnels contributed his own piece to the exhibit--a typical text piece from him.


 John Runnels, Genesis, 1995-2013, acrylic and colored pencil on paper, 68 x 30 inches



Solomon Kane, Caduceus of Creation, 2012, polyurethane intermediate and car paint, 33 x 66 x 14 inches

Solomon Kane had one of his encrusted polychromatic sculptures in the show. And I made a quick stop at Brandon Araujo's studio. (That's him in the hoodie. Did I mention that the studios were unheated?)



Most of the work on display I had seen before. But he showed me some large works in progress that he hadn't hung. We were standing in front of one talking about it and I noticed that there was a lady hovering nearby. I thought maybe she wanted to ask Brandon something so I stepped aside and he greeted her. She was apparently unknown to him--just a random Artcrawler. She wanted to take a picture of the big unfinished painting. Brandon politely told her no--it was a work in progress.



In past Artcrawls, the streets have been full of people. It was just too cold this time, but not for the guy in shorts in the picture above. He wasn't going to let 45 degree weather slow him down.



A Daniel Anguilu mural attracted a few admirers.


 Over at Atelier Jacquinet, there was this nice model shrimp boat.


And this guitarist on the kitchen counter. (Atelier Jacquinet always has good music every year. I don't know who this singer was, but she had some adoring fans.)



The Last Concert Cafe also always has some good music, but folks didn't linger in front of the outdoor stage this year. I liked that the guy on the right got dressed up for the occasion.



This broken vinyl record in the dead winter grass was a poignant symbol of something or other.



Over at the Foundry, there was a group pop-up show featuring David Graeve, Michael Meazell, Alfredo Scaroina, Patrick Renner, Felipe Lopez, Cecilia Johnson and Lester Marks. It's where Graeve's studio is, so he was in the position to stage his work quite dramatically. For example:


Two David Graeve sculptures


Two by Alfredo Scaroina

 The rest was hung a little more casually.




And here is Alfredo Scaroina himself. He and his crew were serving tacos (yum!) and beer, so it was hard to leave the Foundry. But I pressed on.



My next stop was Studio Twenty Twenty (I think) on Commerce Street. I liked this Ozzy/O.J. combo. The Ozzy stencil was painted right on the wall.




Then I swung by Super Happy Fun Land. They're a bit off the beaten track for Artcrawl, but they go all out.



The Raggedy Ann wall at Super Happy Funland




This band, Afternoon Power, was playing. Not bad! I hung out listening to them for quite a while, but finally went over to El Rincón Social for a very nice photography exhibit, which deserves more than a drive-by post like this. After hanging out there for a while, I headed home, stopping to pick up some champagne at Spec's (for mimosas at Sunday brunch). 



Artcrawl is a Houston tradition, just like purple drank. Long may it thrive.

My Mentor’s Name is Alfredo Scaroina: Spotlight on Marthann Masterson

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

As I looked at her recent paintings, Marthann Masterson described the “joy” she felt when painting in the abstract style. She had been reluctant to attempt abstraction, she told me, and had to be persuaded by a friend. “It’s not at all easy,” she said. “A dear friend and very fine artist, Alfredo, encouraged me to take the leap, told me it was time to move into abstraction. Alfredo mentored me, showed me how to manipulate paint, how to mix the materials to get the right consistency and achieve different effects like texture, opacity, transparency. It’s almost a science on its own.”

“I forgot to tell you the name of my mentor. His name is Alfredo Scaroina.”

Masterson said she detects a new “vitality” in her work, and certainly by this she means refinement of technique, a more precise word might be fluency. It was important to her that I understand her proficiency came from hard work and determination. Her only formal training was at the Glassell School.

It’s clear she mastered color which drives her work without dominating it. Looking closely at the paintings, one is struck by exquisite nuance in the skeins of blue and splatters of green that interrupt wider patches of vermillion and crimson. I am reminded of Mark Rothko’s words, "the fact that one usually begins with drawing is academic. We start with color."


Marthann Masterson, Ghost Ship, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 58 x 38

If color is a point of departure, brush technique brings all to a sensual completion. There are no harsh slashes or agitated movements, yet handling is free and blurry. Although paint application seems fluid, it is not spontaneous. Masterson said she makes determined choices as to how thickly to apply paint. She also programs how much painting medium is required for surface texture.


Marthann Masterson, Aquatic, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36

The artist believes prolonged interaction with the works of Rothko and Jackson Pollock subsumes her art. As a child she moved to New York and lived on Fifth Avenue and there spent significant time in museums. Upon discovering Rothko she was seduced. “I saw a painting by Rothko and was enchanted, and had to know more about him and his work. I became diligent about finding out all I could about the artist and learned which museum or galleries had his paintings. I bought all the books I could find and devoured them!” In the same manner she incorporated Pollock.

There is irony in the fact that Masterson’s recent work has a decidedly atmospheric quality, and that Rothko, whom she admired, was a great admirer of J.M.W. Turner’s portrayal of atmosphere, color and light. The art historian Robert Goldwater wrote that Rothko’s paintings are “enormously willful.” In that her fluency is the result of passion and persistence, Masterson’s art can be called willful.

While we were visiting she told me “one should feel haunted by the art one chooses to live with.” Masterson undoubtedly applies the same standard to her paintings, which possess a haunting, somewhat timeless quality.

Before becoming proficient in abstraction, Masterson painted chairs. That unexpected artistic subject, she explained, was inspired by feelings of loneliness. It was early in her career when a gallery owner suggested she create a work of art that comes from “deep within myself.” So she completed On the Outside, an arrangement of chairs which iterates separation and isolation. “It represents a life-long feeling of being different and rejected,” Masterson said, “always on the outside.” On the Outside won a painting competition in Florida, after which it inspired the Sarasota Ballet company to choreograph a piece based on it, and to use the painting’s image for stage scenery.


Marthann Masterson, On the Outside, 2000, Pastel, 36”x 48”

She continues to paint chairs and they have remained the primary component of her objective vocabulary. Masterson considers chairs to be an apt metaphor for speaking about human emotions.


Marthann Masterson, Sympatico, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 12


Marthann Masterson, Sympatica, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 12

According to her biographical material, Wayne Gilbert was one of the first to give Masterson exhibition exposure when he included her in a group show. So I went to Wayne and asked him what he thought of her development. “Oh, Marthann has worked really hard, she has not waivered, and it’s certainly paid off,” Wayne Gilbert told me. On September 22 Masterson will be showing her art at the Winter Street Studio Gallery, an exhibition of abstract paintings and chair paintings. “It’s my first solo show,” she said quite happily.


Marthann Masterson in her Winter Street studio

Alfredo Scaroina’s Symbolic Language

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

Paul Klee believed objective representation was inadequate to express that which he called “the reality behind visible things.” The universe’s immensity and complexity, its hidden forces, Klee asserted, required language that was more abstract, more primitive. Only through the use of signs and symbols - strange markings, pictograms, numbers and letters - Klee believed, could he penetrate “to the secret place where primordial law causes developments.”

As much as the universe’s unseen forces require symbolic language, so does human consciousness. Adolph Gottlieb, a painter of pictographs, understood this when he said mans’ emotions, fears and dreams necessitated “the global language of art.” As did Rothko who stated art required “eternal symbols.”

I thought of Klee’s signs and symbols when I saw the primitive markings, numbers, letters and geometric shapes in Alfredo Scaroina’s art at Deborah Colton Gallery. To learn more I contacted Scaroina, and over the course of several fun visits he told me his markings were indeed symbols, and by way of reinforcement quoted the Italian aphorist Pitigrilli, “Man does not live like wild beasts, in a world of merely physical things, but in a world of signs and symbols.”

Scaroina said his coloring is deliberate and metaphoric, and each number, letter and form holds symbolic import. Some allusions can be as simplistic as the birth date of a significant person. You have to stand close to the canvases to detect newsprint beneath semi translucent layers of paint and latex, but each printed article was chosen for content.


Alfredo Scaroina, Composición #021, 2012, Acrylic, Oil, Charcoal, Graphite, Black Gesso, Spray Paint, Synthetic Polymer, Archival Newsprint on Canvas, 60" x 48"

Glyphs and geometric forms that symbolize human thoughts and experiences, Scaroina believes, arise from the subconscious, and simultaneously reside in a universal domain where they are accessible. Marking the canvas he told me “connects me with the viewer.” He spoke of “indivisible unity” and also of "collective consciousness." I asked him if he meant those words in the Jungian sense, in which all humans share certain archetypes. “That is precisely how I intended it, in the Jungian sense,” he said.

Integral to this metaphysical concept is the idea that the artist proceeds ritualistically.

As energy enters the emblematic space, the creative act becomes a form of magic. It’s been well documented that Mondrian and Kandinsky had mystical leanings of this sort. So did Beuys and Basquiat. Many contemporary artists equate their art making to shamanism and divination. Anselm Kiefer, who weirdly exorcised German history, and David Hammons whose wine bottle sculptures bestowed blessings on street people, immediately come to mind.

During our talk Scaroina entered unexpected territory when he said, “all emotions or states of mind at a specific moment, are translated into 'matter,' into visual matter, consummating the concept of Matter as Art.” English is not Scaroina’s first language and he apologized for any improper usage, but it’s certain here he veered into the subject of quantum physics, which leaves open the possibility of perception influencing matter. Seeing the manner in which his hieroglyphic ideogramattic markings and colorful distorted geometric forms pulsate with energy and float sensually in organic layers of paint, makes intuitively valid associations with time, matter, multidimensionality and particles. The exhibition’s title, “Taming Matter / Domando la Materia,” reinforces my intuition.

Although we did not discuss it, there might be another component driving Scaroina’s art: Vedic philosophy. According to Hindu scripture, all in the universe - humans, the cosmos - are of the same spiritual essence, and with contemplation can be psychically linked. The individual soul is identical with the universal soul, the Upanishads tell us. Scaroina’s art seems to voice precisely this type of interconnectedness.


Alfredo Scaroina, Composición #6, 2012, Acrylic, Charcoal, Black Gesso, Synthetic Polymer, Graphite, Metal Dust, Archival Newsprint on Canvas, 24" x 18"

Although completely personalized, Scaroina’s art derives from important art historical precedents, Twombly’s calligraphic markings and Rauschenberg’s multi-object combines are just a few. The work of Joaquín Torres Garcia, whose art looks back to pre-Columbian culture, and is composed with grid like rectangular shapes and primitive pictographs and ideograms, is also an influence. In his abundant theorizing Torres Garcia said, “Unity is at the foundation of everything.”


Alfredo Scaroina, Composición #030, 2012, Acrylic, Oil, Charcoal, Gesso, Synthetic Polymer, Found fabric on Canvas, 48" x 36”