Stephen F. Austin State University’s The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House, located at 329 E. Main St. in downtown Nacogdoches, is currently closed through Thursday, June 2, while new exhibitions are being installed.
The center will reopen on Friday, June 3, for the 5:30 p.m. opening reception for the “2011 Nacogdoches Art League Annual Exhibition,” which will run through Saturday, July 2, in the second floor Hallway Gallery. Peter Andrew, SFA professor of art, serves as the exhibition’s juror.
Friday’s reception will be followed by a free one-night screening of “Third Ward TX” at 7 p.m. Andrew Garrison’s 57-minute film documents a group of African-American artists who transform a row of condemned shotgun houses in Houston’s Third Ward into a viable neighborhood and home for public art.
The film is a part of the SFA School of Art and Friends of the Visual Arts’ monthly independent film series and is sponsored in part by The African American Heritage Project.
On Saturday, June 3, two more exhibitions will open. At 5:30 p.m., “El Camino Real De Los Tejas National Historic Trails,” an exhibition of photographs SFA Associate Professor of Art Christopher Talbot took along the historic corridor, will open in the Ledbetter Gallery. The show is sponsored in part by the Nacogdoches Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Congress designated El Camino Real a National Historic Trail in 2004. Jeffrey Williams, Geographic Information System Network Systems Administrator for SFA’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry, will speak at 5:30 about his involvement with the National Park Service’s National Historic Trails office.
At 6 p.m., “Nac Collects,” an eclectic exhibition of artworks by Nacogdoches collectors Laura McKinney, Linda McKinney and Terry Steed, will open in the upstairs Reavley Gallery.
Admission to all of the events is free and open to the general public. Regular hours for The Cole Art Center are 12:30 to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, please call (936) 468-1131.
