Everything Nac

Tickets are still available for a performance of the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus as part of the College of Fine Arts’ 2014-2015 University Series, “Connect.”

The program will feature a performance of “Pursued,” written by Stephen Lias, professor of composition in the SFA School of Music. Prior to the concert, Lias will present a 7 p.m. informative talk in Griffith Gallery about the artists and their music. The audience is invited back to the gallery for a post-performance reception to meet the performers and to honor the event’s corporate sponsor, BancorpSouth.

Tickets range from $20 to $40, with discounts available for seniors, SFA faculty/staff, students and youth. For tickets or more information, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6406 or (888) 240-ARTS.

The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Art will present the exhibition “Vision & Substance: The Art of John Cobb,” showing Oct. 25 through Jan. 10 in Ledbetter Gallery in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

For more than 30 years, Cobb has been working on a series of egg tempera and gold leaf paintings for a chapel series. At present, the majority of the paintings are displayed in a temporary free-standing chapel that viewers can enter. Aside from the chapel series, Cobb also works as a landscape painter, creating beautifully detailed paintings of the Texas landscape. The chapel (still a work in progress), along with a series of landscapes, will be featured in this retrospective exhibition, according to John Handley, director of art galleries for the School of Art.

In the catalog that will accompany the exhibition, Handley wrote that Cobb’s vision is “the creation of a chapel filled with glistening egg-tempera and gold leaf paintings, executed in the methods of the old masters, depicting his rendition of modern day saints in Biblical semblance.”

“For Cobb, saints are defined in the everyday – the ordinary person on the street, the neighbor, the relative who lives in quietude in an ever steady, abiding faith,” Handley said. “They appear like ancient icons with their luminous gold leaf backgrounds, but the faces that gaze back at us are not Byzantine; rather they appear familiar, like somebody we know or have met at one time.”

Handley saw Cobb’s work for the first time two years ago at Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Dallas.

“I have spent a great deal of my life looking at art, but I have to say I had never encountered something like this – a 30-year-plus vision to create a chapel, which to this day still has no permanent home or a commitment for one,” Handley said. “ And yet, Cobb keeps working away, knowing that one day the chapel will have a permanent home and caretaker.”

Handley returned two weeks after that initial visit to hear the artist speak. Since then, Handley has visited Cobb in his studio in Austin on several occasions, and he is working with David Lewis, professor of art history at SFA, and Cheryl Vogel of Valley House to produce the first exhibition catalog devoted to his work.

Of Cobb’s work, Vogel writes: “The more I see the world interpreted through John Cobb’s compassionate eyes, the more I learn to observe the bounty of life.”

The exhibition will open with a reception at 6 p.m. Oct. 25. Prior to the reception, Vogel will interview the artist about his work starting at 5 p.m., followed by a question/answer session.

This exhibition, which is part of the 2014-2015 University Series, is supported by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden. It is sponsored in part by the SFA Friends of the Visual Arts and the Nacogdoches Junior Forum.

All exhibitions and gallery lectures are free.

For additional information about this exhibition and others presented by the SFA art galleries, visit www.art.sfasu.edu/ or call (936) 468-1131.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre will present the student-directed “The Man Who Turned Into a Stick” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, and at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, in the Downstage Theatre on the SFA campus.

Senior Michael Spencer of Colleyville directs Kobo Abe’s one-act play that contemplates life and demands audience participation to consider its meaning on a personal level.

“On a hot day in front of a store, two delinquents waste away on the curb,” Spencer said in describing the play’s synopsis. “Suddenly, a stick falls from the sky. From the shadows enter Man and Woman From Hell, who fight for control of the stick. The stick jumps in the boy’s hand. The boy and girl leave. When the smoke clears, Woman From Hell is taught a hard lesson, and the audience is taught an even harder one.”

The cast includes Grand Prairie junior Chipper Morris as Boy; Leander freshman Kayla “Kindie” Peterson as Girl; Beaumont freshman Erik Freels-Vargas as Man From Hell; The Woodlands senior Ashe Vernon as Woman From Hell; and Lufkin freshman Jacob Carr as Man Who Turned Into a Stick.

The production staff includes M.J. Myer, Houston senior, as stage manager; Victoria Stoner, Odessa junior, scenic designer; Brianna Veselka, West senior, costume designer; Troy Carrico, Austin junior, lighting designer; Nicole Novit, Dallas senior, sound designer; and Lincoln Smith, Venus junior, make-up designer.

Focusing on acting and directing, Spencer has appeared in “Blood Wedding,” “WASP” and “W;t.” He has performed in a number of community shows in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Tickets are $4. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu. “The Man Who Turned Into a Stick” is recommended for mature audiences (teens or older).

When an exhibition of artwork by students and faculty at the School of Art at the University of Chihuahua opens on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus, SFA Professor of Ceramics Piero Fenci will take great pride and satisfaction in seeing the artistic relationship he established between the Mexican university and SFA continue to flourish.

The upcoming exhibition, which opens with a reception at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in Griffith Gallery in the Griffith Fine Arts Building, runs through Friday, Dec. 12. It is comprised of works on paper, with media ranging from drawing to printmaking, photography and digital media.

This exhibition is part of an exchange program between SFA and the La Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua. The exchange started more than a decade ago when Fenci went to UACH to teach a one-month ceramics workshop. Since 2004, Fenci has continued to regularly visit the University of Chihuahua, helping support and develop the ceramics program he created there. As a result, students from UACH have come to SFA to earn master’s degrees in art.

“This effort has been my opportunity to do in Mexico what I did here at SFA, and that was to build a ceramics program from virtually nothing,” Fenci said. “I’ve been able to go to Chihuahua almost every year to mentor the program, build kilns, lecture and demonstrate.” Fenci’s last workshop at the University of Chihuahua was a ceramic and cast glass workshop taught jointly with his SFA art faculty colleague Maki Hajikano last fall.

Adán Sáenz, one of Fenci’s former ceramic students who earned an MFA at SFA, is professor in charge of ceramics at the University of Chihuahua. He said the exhibition coming to SFA provides an overview of the kind of work being produced by students and faculty at UACH.

“The works of the exhibition are very diverse in media, subject matter and style,” Sáenz said. “We are very excited to be able to participate in this exhibition and hope that we can continue strengthening the relationship between SFA and the University of Chihuahua.”

That continues to be Fenci’s goal – to recruit more UACH graduates to SFA to earn master’s degrees that will prepare them for great opportunities in the art world. Another of Fenci’s former MFA students, Kira Enriquez, heads up the ceramics program at Indiana State University.

“Four prospective students from the University of Chihuahua will be accompanying this exhibition,” Fenci said. “We will be doing our best to convince them to apply here.”

All SFA art exhibitions are free and open to the public. Griffith Gallery is located in the Griffith Fine Arts Building, 2222 Alumni Drive. For information, call (936) 468-1131.