Flat Creek Estates Winery Show Report

from Bob Coffee:

"The setting was the best of the Texas Hill Country! The weather was 'spring perfect'! The hosts were gracious and genereous. The wine was heady! And the Closing Party was a blast!

19 TSOS sculptors from 7 communities showed 46 sculptures in many medias. Sculptors who took turns 'sitting' the show reported visitation ranged from constant and heavy (weekends), with much interest in the work, to sparse (Mon -Wed). About 70 people attended the Closing Party and enjoyed winery tours, wine tastings and a pot-luck awards dinner. Awards went to these TSOS members:

• 1st Place - "Relationship II" by Greg Beck
• 2nd Place - "Billy Goats Gruff" by Bob Coffee
• 3rd Place - "Hellfired" by Michael Farar
• Award of Merit - "Jackrabbity" by Val Mills
• Award of Merit - "Day Dreamer" by Christopher Robbins
• Award of Merit - "Pyramid II" by Mary Kay Morse

The Winery folks were very pleased with the exhibit and want us back for an encore, and - from reports from our participants - their feeling is the same. With some study, this could become an annual TSOS signature event."

Bob Coffee Organizing Tour of the Crossings for TSOS October Juried Show

From Bob Coffee:

Next October TSOS has been invited to hold a Juried show at the "Crossings" - a hill country retreat/conference center and spa above Lake Travis near 2222 and 620.

Last week, I and TSOS member Mike Epps and the the Crossings' art exhibits lady toured this most impressive facility. The buildings (themselves architectural design award winners) are well adapted to showing off sculpture - both indoors and along the paths and open spaces that connect them. Work by a number of our members (Dan Pogue, Cindy Debold, Mike Epps) are now on exhibit there - and beautifully displayed.

I'd like to get a party together to tour the Crossings and eat lunch in their cafeteria ($12.50/ea) ASAP. Again, all interested members should come. We should take advantage of this exceptional opportunity and try to show here annually!

Nancy Grey to Talk about Lampasas' "Art in the Park" at TSOS June Board Meeting, June 13th

Nancy Grey, of Lampasas' "Art in the Park" will attend our June Board Meeting to talk about Lampasas' "Art in the Park" - an annual outdoor sculpture show that she has organized and promotes. The next event will be in May, '08 and she will have entry info out in July. She is very keen on having TSOS sculptors participate. All interested members should attend this board luncheon scheduled on June 13th at Central Market.

TSOS Sculptor Mark Yale Harris Unveils Monumental Sculpture

WHAT: Solo Exhibition, Mark Yale Harris: “Unveiling of Crush”

WHERE: Crossroads Contemporary 203 Canyon Road – Santa Fe, New Mexico

WHEN: Solo Exhibition, August 24 through September 30, 2007
Opening Reception, August 24, 5 P.M. to 7 P.M.
Unveiling of Crush and Artist Lecture, August 25 at 4 P.M.

Santa Fe, NM (May 21, 2007) – Crossroads Contemporary: A Gallery of International Fine Art commemorates sculptor Mark Yale Harris in tandem with its fourth successful season as the flagship gallery on Santa Fe’s historical Canyon Road. The completion of Mark Yale Harris’s larger-than-life abstraction, Crush, marks yet another advancement in Harris’s artistic career, his largest sculpture to date. He continues to create artwork that challenges himself and his medium. The much anticipated unveiling of Crush will occur at Crossroads Contemporary in conjunction with Harris’s artist reception and solo exhibition, opening Friday, August 24th from 5 P.M. to 7 P.M., concluding September 20th. A subsequent unveiling and artist lecture will be held Saturday, August 25th at 4 P.M.

The completion of Mark Yale Harris’s larger-than-life abstraction, Crush, marks yet another advancement in Harris’s artistic career, his largest sculpture to date. He continues to create artwork that challenges himself and his medium. The much anticipated unveiling of Crush will occur at Crossroads Contemporary in conjunction with Harris’s artist reception and solo exhibition, opening Friday, August 24th from 5 P.M. to 7 P.M., concluding September 20th. A subsequent unveiling and artist lecture will be held Saturday, August 25th at 4 P.M.

Mark Twain wrote, “The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.” Mark Yale Harris’s “determined spirit” has garnered him prodigious success in the business world, a decade of acclaim in the arts, and most importantly, has made him successful in life. At seventy-years-old and retired from his career in conscious, urban development, Harris has, yet again, decided to challenge himself creatively and personally. Rising to a challenge, however, has never been something that Harris shies away from. After a lifelong interest the arts, at 59 years of age, Harris decided to leap and pursue his first love. After selling his successful companies, he looked to the art world in hopes of making a career of his passion.

Now, after a decade of success in the art world, Harris has decided to embark upon his most ambitious, artistic feat to date, creating the first in a series of larger-than-life-size abstractions. Facing physical challenges due to hip and back problems and consequent corrective surgeries have made creating sculpture of this magnitude painstaking at best. Despite these difficulties Harris accepted this four-hundred-pound enlargement project enthusiastically. In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, aging "…is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be." Harris continually chooses to climb the summit.

Crush, kneels at an impressive 61 x 80 x 21 inches. Cast in bronze, it depicts two figures in rapture, arms outstretched, embracing one another, while allowing for an abundance of space to exist between them. Hollis Walker writes on Harris’s work, stating that his art, “eschews excessive details, allowing line, form and the qualities of the stone to take precedence, leaving the rest to the viewer. Nothing is more tedious than overwrought sculpture, and Harris seems to understand that less is more.” Crush epitomizes this statement.

After making its debut at Sculpture in the Park in Loveland, Colorado, Crush will travel to Crossroads Contemporary for it’s Santa Fe unveiling. The first bronze Crush from this edition of 8 was commissioned by the Hartford Group, for placement in an innovative new sculpture garden in Fort Collins, Colorado. Since the completion and success of Crush, Harris has engaged in three additional larger-than-life projects.

Mark Yale Harris learned to sculpt forms with grace and elegance from his mentors, two of the most revered sculptors of the Southwest, Bill Prokopiof (Aleut) and Doug Hyde (Nez Perce). Both of whom are noted protégés of “the nation’s most recognized Native American artist,” sculptor Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache, 1915-1994). Currently, Harris’s sculpture is featured in 22 galleries across the country. In addition, his work will be featured in several museum exhibitions in 2007, including Red River Valley Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, and Museum of the Southwest. As well, solo exhibitions this year will take place nationwide. The majority of chief sculpture institutions in our country include Harris as a member and have both requested and awarded his participation in their renowned, juried exhibitions including: The National Sculpture Society- New York, New York; Texas Fine Arts Association - Statewide; and FOCA Museum of Fine Arts – Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others. Mark Harris has also been showcased in several notable publications including: The Santa Fe New Mexican, ART-TALK, Southwest Art Magazine, Elegant Texan Magazine and Wildlife Art Magazine.

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