Slaton Sojourn

It seems that I am always a week or two behind in posting, and this post is about a trip I took with friends to Slaton, Texas, about 20 miles southeast of Lubbock. We were there for three days leading into the Easter weekend. Our destination was the wonderful studio/living space/gallery of a friend, artist, and former instructor who is on the art faculty at Texas Tech. Her space was a former furniture store in downtown Slaton, and as it is about 9000 square feet, you can imagine that it is a magnificent space! Just so you don't have to totally imagine it, the picture above shows two of her very cool sculptures on a little "stage" in front of a window that looks out on one of the state highways that runs through downtown Slaton. Awesome windows and check out the vintage flooring!

The stated purpose of the visit was "art retreat" and we did indeed do some art-making, but that was in between catching up, eating, antiquing, planning meals, walking, cooking, driving, eating out, exploring, and conversing about food. ;-D That's how I see it, but doubt anyone else did! All kidding aside we did get some nice blocks of studio time. Here is Ann Marie hard at work, and I love the light in this photo!

We made a couple of side trips, like to Post for Trade Days (don't bother!), but the one to Ransom Canyon to see the famous Robert Bruno house was very worthwhile. Bruno was a faculty member of the Architecture Department at Tech, and he built this house out of welded steel. The house is almost all steel on the outside, and a good proportion of the inside as well. Of course I had forgotten my camera so here is one from the internet. If you click on the link there is an interesting article. Apparently it took Bruno almost 30 years to build the house, and it's a pretty amazing sight hanging there overlooking the lake.

There was a dinner party the last night we were there that included other Art Dept. faculty and two California artists who have started a project called Earthbound Moon. As it says on their website, "Earthbound Moon is a noncontiguous sculpture garden, discrete parcels of land spaced across the face of the Earth, each parcel the home to a publicly accessible sculpture. " The first site is in Bledsoe, Texas which is not far from Slaton and that's why the artists were visiting. It was pretty fascinating to hear about their vision, and it was an enjoyable evening.

I got a start on some little paintings that I think may evolve into a new series. These were fun to paint, and I'll do some similar but larger pieces next. This one is called "Woodland I" and I'll probably list it sometime soon in my Etsy shop CynART.

Thanks to our hostess for a wonderfully special visit, and to all of us for being so much fun!