| Tom Sime: Arts out there Work by celebrated Louisiana sculptor on view 05/23/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News
Louisiana artist Clyde Connell (1901-1998) lived long enough to see her
name and fame blossom from swampland obscurity to international
proportions. But plenty of people still don't know her work.
You can catch up with this lifelong innovator – whose sculptures in
wood, vines, rusty metal and paper pulp are like no one else's – in a
retrospective exhibition in the Bell Gallery at the Tyler Museum of Art.
The exhibit runs through July 22. "Clyde Connell: Daughter of the Bayou"
was organized by the Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College of
Louisiana in Shreveport.
The artist grew up on a plantation in Belcher, La., and set up her first
studio in Greenwood when she was in her late forties, while her husband
was superintendent of the Caddo Parish Penal Farm. In 1959, she moved to
a cabin at Lake Bistineau, near Shreveport, where she lived and worked
for the rest of her life, letting the art world come to her.
Texas figured prominently in the discovery of her work. Ms. Connell
first appeared on the Texas art scene in the late '70s when Dallas art
dealer Murray Smither, who was among the first to recognize her talent,
introduced her to Tyler Museum of Art director Ron Gleason. She was
given an important exhibition at the museum in 1979.
Her work has since been acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art
and the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
The Tyler Museum of Art is at 1300 S. Mahon, on the Tyler Junior College
campus. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and
Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
Admission is $3.50 for adults, $1.50 for seniors and kids. For more
information, call 903-595-1001.
Artfest arrives
It's time for Artfest, the 500 Inc.'s 31st annual arts festival in Fair
Park. The event takes place over the Memorial Day weekend: Friday from 6
to 10 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6
p.m.
Highlights include a juried art exhibit of 200 artists in sculpture,
painting, photography and crafts, with all items for sale.
Children's activities include a "No Boundaries" area with entertainment,
games, exhibits and "Sand Box of Discovery" with hidden treasures. Box
City is a project developed with the American Institute of Architects
which helps kids build a miniature city with boxes on a street grid map.
Saturday morning's Run for the Arts includes a 5K race at 8:15 a.m., a
10K at 8:45 and a 1K at 9:15.
Artfest admission is $5 in advance (tickets at Tom Thumb stores), $6 at
the gate. Kids younger than 4 get in free. For more information, call
214-369-0500 or see the Web site,
www.dallasartfest.com.
Art talk
Artist John Pomara will give a talk entitled "Screen Play," at the Dallas
Museum of Art Thursday in connection with "Concentrations 39: John
Pomara," an exhibition of his new paintings and digital prints.
"I plan to explore the visual contradiction in my work between the
spontaneous touch of the hand and the mechanical detachment of
reproduction," Mr. Pomara says. "Media technology is altering the way we
see, think and feel. So much of what we see is filtered through screens,
and it is influencing how we see and re-image ourselves [by] creating
pictures."
The lecture will be in Horchow Auditorium at the DMA, 1717 N. Harwood.
Admission is $5 general, $3 for museum members, free for students. The
exhibit will be on view through August 26. Call 214-922-1200.
Free music
Soprano Katherine Bongfeldt will sing a selection of operatic arias Monday
at 3 p.m. at NorthPark Center, Northwest Highway at Central Expressway.
The free concert is to promote the Dallas Opera's raffle of a new $45,000
Mercedes convertible at 4 p.m. Monday. The car is on display outside
Tiffany's, where Ms. Bongfeldt will perform.
At the same spot, raffle tickets will be on sale daily through Monday.
Tickets are $100 each, and no more than 2,000 will be sold.
Dallasites may remember Ms. Bongfeldt from her Dallas Opera debut in
Die Fledermaus and her role as Polly in The Boy Friend at
Theatre Three.
To order raffle tickets by phone, call 214-443-1061.
• Another classical freebie, from the Fine Arts Chamber Players: Members
of the Dallas Opera Orchestra will perform chamber music for the last of
the season's Bancroft Family Concerts at the Dallas Museum of Art on
Saturday at 3 p.m.
The free concert will be in Horchow Auditorium, and features music by
Mozart and Carl Nielsen. Call 214-922-1200 for more information.
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