Local Talent to Show Their Art at Mission Dolores - August 8, 2008
Photo by Val Sharp

San Augustine, TX - Local residents with a talent for art will soon have an opportunity to show their work to the public. Bill Simmons, Manager of Mission Dolores has planned an exhibit from mid-August to the last of September. There will be a reception from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on opening day, August 16, 2008. Some of those who have already agree to bring pieces for the exhibit are shown here, left, Richard Murphy, Julia Wade, Dorothy Miller and Agnes Sparks.

Mission Dolores to Have Art Show Starting in August - August 8, 2008
By Val Sharp

The public will have the wonderful opportunity to see the art work of some local artists beginning in mid-August. This comes on the heals of the Spring showing of the great photographs taken by Russell Lee in San Augustine in 1939.

The art show is being produced by Bill Simmons, Manager of the Mission Dolores site and will open there on August 16th with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m.

Some artists have already agreed to show their work and a number of others are expected to do so before the opening.

A native of Louisiana and a graduate of Baylor University, in 1950 Julia Wade studied Art and Art History in Paris, France under French artists Reynaud and Marthe Arnould and later under the American artist Virginia Balckmon. Having majored in Drama and Speech at the University, Wade has appeared in a number of theatrical productions. Part of her drama training along with husband, Nelsyn, was under the famous Paul Baker. Wade has said, it was her “aim, obsession, objective for many years to see the Mission Dolores recognized, re-recreated, re-built. This Mission Building is a dream come true, and she is awed and honored to be part of an Art Show in this Mission Nuestra Senora de los Ais..”

From a school days love of art to being a professional artist is a big jump–one that was accomplished by Dorothy Miller who will include some of her work in the Mission Art Show.
Miller moved to San Augustine from Grand Prairie in 1970 and soon after was invited by Mrs. Casey Jones to accompany her to the studio of Virginia Blackman. Miller studied under Blackmon for a while. She later took three semesters of painting and two of drawing at Angelina College then one semester at Stephen F. Austin State University. During these years of study and painting, she has been teaching others–over 120 people by her count. In the course of here artistic career, Miller has sold many paintings focusing principally on wildlife and commissioned work for others. About painting, she says, “A painting is your most inter-being portrayed on canvas.”

Richard Murphy is well known locally both for his art work in “dry media” and his story telling of events in the history of San Augustine. Richard found in grammar school that he had “knack” for drawing and by the third grade he could draw the cartoon characters Popeye and Donald Duck in ten seconds. Some years later at the San Diego Naval Training Station he briefly produced a comic strip called “The Little Drip”, a nautical takeoff on the Army’s “Sad Sack”. After WWII while at Baylor University he took a course in cartooning from comic strip artist Jack Hamm and worked on the Baylor Lariat. In the 1950's while working for DuPont in Orange, he did sports and editorial cartoons for the local daily newspaper. There he also discovered pastels and did hundreds of those, mostly of children. He found oils to be a trifle slow for him and decided to concentrate on pen-and-ink, charcoals, pastels and other “dry media.”

Another of our local artists is a long-time teacher and administrator for San Augustine Independent School District. Her first art class was in drawing and watercolor while studying Home Economics at Stephen F. Austin State College. A project for that class was connected to Home Ec by doing costumes on figures. Later, while working on her masters degree, she took oil painting from Karl Schlicher, head of the Art Department. All of her work has been for self enjoyment and she has spent considerable study time for that purpose. She has take courses under Virginia Blackman at Angelina College, Dorothy Miller, a participant in this show and Woodrow Foster, a well known artist from Center, Texas. Sparks also took watercolor lessons from Lucille Kennedy of Nacogdoches and also went to a workshop in Saltillo, Mexico, with her and her husband, Art Professor Reese Kennedy.

There will be more information on the event as others sign up to show their work.