Everything Nac

The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Art will present an exhibition of works by contemporary artist Junko Chodos showing Jan. 24 through March 25 in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

“Junko Chodos: Can We Hear Our Own Voice?” features mixed media pieces and drawings. The artist considers herself “a hypermodern mystic,” and she describes much of her work as “centripetal” in nature.

“It refers to art created by an artist who strives towards her center and encounters ‘Divine Presence’ there, where people go beyond the barriers of ethnicity, gender, religious denominations, dogma, and confined ideas of blood and soil,” she writes. “For such an artist, the process of creating art itself is a spiritual journey on which every step must be taken with honesty, with discipline and with courage.

“When the artist’s journey is successful, the viewer participates in it and starts out on his or her own journey,” she said. “Then the process of creating art and the process of viewing art becomes one, and the transcendence that the artist reaches becomes the viewer’s own transcendence.”

Her large-scale pieces are titled “Lift the Curtain Series.”

“These pieces deal with the boundary between the outer world and the inner world,” she said. “As their title implies, they require us to have the courage to look behind the curtain which we take for granted as something that separates these two worlds.

“The images of this series came to me as strong demands,” she said. “It can be said that they came as a Revelation, or if you feel more comfortable using (Carl) Jung’s words, they came from the collective unconscious – from a place far deeper than the personal unconscious. They came as a shock to me: they flooded onto me, they made me sway, one image after another continuing through all the works in that series, demanding my response.”

John Handley, director of SFA Art Galleries, first encountered Junko’s work while he was at The University of California, Berkley. He said he was immediately attracted to it on many levels: “the abstraction, expressiveness and immediacy of the work, touching on emotional turmoil, hope, fear, spirituality and transcendence.”

“I’ve continued to watch her career and was really taken by the body of work selected for this exhibition,” he said. “This is not your typical art; it embodies so much about the artist’s life and journey, and I believe the show will inspire artists from all media to think in broader terms about creativity.”

This is the first public exhibition in which these works are being displayed. However many of the artist’s friends – composers and other artists – have come to her studio to see them and have said that they could not stop crying, and that they consider these works to be “an important message to our generation,” she said.

The artist will discuss her work, specifically where her art fits into the course of art history, at a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27, at Cole Art Center. The reception is sponsored in part by the Friends of the Visual Arts, Nacogdoches Junior Forum and The Flower Shop.

Junko Takahashi was born in 1939 in Tokyo, Japan. Her experience during World War II affected her later in life and in her art.She grew up in a household where Shinto, Buddhism and Christianity were strong influences. She was a member of the first post-war generation of “commoners” allowed to attend the prestigious Gakushūin, the “Imperial school.”

She enrolled at Tokyo’s Waseda University, graduating in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in art history and philosophy. In 1968, she migrated to California, calling herself a “spiritual refugee.” She attended the State University of New York, Buffalo. In 1971, she married Rafael Chodos, a lawyer and author in biblical studies and the aesthetics of fine art.

She has been creating art professionally since the early 1970s and has produced more than 1,000 works in a variety of media and techniques, many of which she invented.

For more information, call (936) 468-1131.

The Music Preparatory Division of the School of Music at Stephen F. Austin State University is introducing early childhood music classes as part of the spring lineup of educational offerings.

Dr. Kristin Lyman, coordinator of music education for the SFA School of Music, will lead the classes beginning Tuesday, Jan. 30, at the Music Prep House at 3028 Raguet St.

Three different 30-minute class offerings twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings will be geared toward young children based on both age and development, according to Pat Barnett, director of the Music Preparatory Division. The classes utilize resources from John Feierabend’s “First Steps in Music.” Each class meets for 12 weeks.

“This is an exciting new offering for the children in the community to experience music and learning,” Barnett said, “and we highly recommend it.”

“Exploring Bounces, Wiggles and Tickles” for newborns to 18 months is designed to help nurture and develop the minds and skills of infants. The class uses developmentally appropriate activities, including performing songs or rhymes with bounces, wiggles, tickles and lullabies. Repertoire selections will be primarily drawn from folk songs, rhymes and classical music. The class meets from 9 to 9:30 a.m. and costs $200.
“Exploring Bounces, Clapping, Tapping and Simple Songs” for children 18 months to 3 years is designed to help develop the minds and skills of toddlers. The class uses developmentally appropriate activities, including performing songs or rhymes with bounces, wiggles, tickles, clapping and tapping. Children will learn simple songs and lullabies. Repertoire selections will be primarily drawn from folk songs, rhymes and classical music. The class meets from 9:45 to 10:15 a.m. and costs $225.

“Exploring Songs, Beat and Movement” for 3- to 5 year-olds allows children to explore pitch through stories and images, sing simple echo or response patterns and songs, explore movement, move to the beat, and use movement to demonstrate musical structure and expression. Repertoire selections will be primarily drawn from folk songs, rhymes and classical music. The class meets from 10:30 to 11 a.m. and costs $250.

Registration forms for the 2018 spring semester are available on the Music Prep website at www.music.sfasu.edu/prep and are being accepted now. The forms may be downloaded and turned in to the Music Prep office. Contact the Music Prep office at (936) 468-1291 for more information.

The Children’s Performing Arts Series at Stephen F. Austin State University will celebrate Black History Month Thursday, Feb. 1, with performances of the Virginia Repertory Theatre’s “Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.”

This stirring drama with music is a classic tribute to the great American who freed herself and hundreds of her people from the bonds of slavery, according to Diane Peterson, SFA Fine Arts Box Office manager and director of the College of Fine Art’s children’s series.

“Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Harriet Tubman’s courage helped to change the world,” Peterson said.

Audiences will learn of Tubman’s inspiring and adventurous life in this factual and deeply moving musical history lesson, written for children in second through eighth grade.

As the story unfolds, children will learn of Tubman’s early years in slavery, her escape to freedom, and her time as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, Tubman becomes a spy for the Union Army, and later a nurse and scout. The North wins the war bringing emancipation to the slaves but that does not end Tubman’s struggle for freedom. She turns her attention to women’s suffrage and continues fighting for everyone who suffers inequality.

Teachers can incorporate this show into their curriculum with reading materials and activities outlined at http://va-rep.org/tour/guides/harriet.pdf.

Other upcoming CPAS performances are Super Scientific Circus on Wednesday, March 7; and “The Ugly Duckling” on Friday, April 27.

Performances are at 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on show dates in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus. Tickets are $7.50 for individuals and $6 per person for groups of 20 or more.

To order tickets, call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS. Visit the CPAS website at www.cpas.sfasu.edu for additional information.