Actress/director Christie Beckham believes in the power of the Tsar Bell. That 20-foot-high bronze bell sits on a pedestal inside the Kremlin for tourists to admire and touch if they want to return to Russia. “I touched the bell,” says Beckham, who first visited...
Director Katy Flato takes the reins Back in 2013, during the first San Antonio Book Festival (SABF), Katy Flato served as moderator for a panel discussion between authors Stephen Harrigan and Bob Thompson, who had both written books about hunting elusive legends. It...
Art consultant Allison Hays Lane helps transform medical facilities Hospitals are rarely inviting places to visit let alone to see original art. But the new Sky Tower of the University Hospital in the Medical Center is definitely an exception. As you step into the...
Marion Koogler McNay was 59 when she made the decision to turn her home and her art collection into the first modern art museum in Texas. Though she had always been interested in art — and was, in fact, an artist herself — until 1942 she mostly bought art to enjoy in...
Ballet San Antonio comes into its own Ballet San Antonio’s president and executive director Courtney Barker has long wanted her company to play a part in the revitalization of downtown, and this fall a big part of that plan is becoming reality. Together with the San...
Southwest School of Art’s Paula Owen makes her mark On the morning I arrive at the Southwest School of Art (SSA) to interview its president, Paula Owen, there are tables set in the front yard, with adults and children milling around, busy signing up for the children’s...
Sylvia benitez Founds GAGA for Women Artists Medical school is not a likely place for an art exhibit, but many employees and visitors to the UTHSC’s flagship institution have had the opportunity to view some gorgeous original art for almost a year. Housed on the...
Soli Chamber Ensemble embraces contemporary composers Last November, clarinetist Stephanie Key threw an early surprise party for the 50th birthday of her cellist husband, David Mollenauer. Months before, she had contacted one of the best-known contemporary music...
Retired teacher Leila Meacham hits mark with Texas novels Back in 1984, Leila Meacham met some people from East Texas who showed her a carefully compiled book of newspaper clippings documenting milestones in their family’s life. In their small town, they were...
The first thing I notice upon entering Sidney Sinclair’s studio is a fairly large square painting of a cross, which, while recognizable as such, is also a free interpretation of the subject rendered in multihued patches of purple, yellow, coral and cream against a...
One of the questions Nan Cuba gets a lot when she speaks to book groups is: How did your novel get included in O, The Oprah Magazine’s “15 Riveting Reads” for the month of May? Such an endorsement is no small accomplishment for any writer, let alone a first-time...
Carver Community Cultural Center has just wrapped up the 2012-13 season, and executive director Yonnie Blanchette couldn’t be more pleased. “I think it was a great season; at least that was the feedback that I got from everybody,” says Blanchette, who has led the...
Arecent Luminaria exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute included a separate room for artist Cathy Cunningham’s glass and light sculptures, appropriately called Radiant Reflections. There were only three of them, but their brilliantly colored shapes sprawled across...
Back in 1996, newcomers Kellen Kee McIntyre and her husband, Eric Lane, were exploring around one day when road repairs on Fredericksburg Road forced them to detour through the surrounding neighborhoods. “I became enchanted by the architecture of the...
It’s a busy First Friday in Southtown, with people milling around, visiting galleries and restaurants. On this particular night I have come to see the new paintings by Lyn Belisle shown at La Vida Gallery, a colorful little place on the northern edge of the artsy...
interviewed for the job of assistant conductor with the San Antonio Symphony last fall, Akiko Fujimoto was asked to deliver the same lecture twice, once with an adult audience in mind and the second time as if she were speaking to children. This was important because...
When strangers meet Ballet San Antonio's principal dancer, Sarah Aujon, they usually ask one of two questions, depending on their age. Kids want to know whether standing on the tips of her toes hurts her feet while adults invariably bring up the movie The Black Swan,...
Though no actual laurel crown was placed on her head, on April 3, Mayor Julián Castro officially appointed author and educator Carmen Tafolla as San Antonio’s first poet laureate and the first city laureate in the state of Texas. It was along-awaited ceremony. First...
