Colorful tissue-paper banners flutter high above El Mercado Market Square, a three-block outdoor plaza in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Mariachi music rings through the air, and tempting aromas from restaurants tease the taste buds. Artisans sell souvenirs from small booths on the sidewalks, and stalls...
When you’re a trustee of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, you know a thing or two about art. So when Philip Maritz put together his plan for The Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View, California, his vision to infuse contemporary paintings, sculptures, and photographs into...
Had David Frederick Riley kept growing beyond 6 feet, 2 inches tall in 10th grade, he figures he might have pursued an NBA career. Fortunately for the world of Western art, however, his height had maxed out. “Around my junior year of high school in...
How perfectly apt that Wayne Delyea, maker of heirloom-quality Western contemporary furniture, should live and work in what was once the largest pecan orchard in Texas, in the community called Pecan Plantation, southwest of Fort Worth. About 80 of those trees still grow on his...
Lisa Gleim has loved portraying the natural world’s denizens for as long as she can remember. “When I was 6, I drew a picture of a clown with a lion, and it won a ribbon at the county fair. I still have it framed on...
To label Vanessa Compton’s artwork as “collage” may at first cause some people to erroneously imagine the sorts of projects done by weekend crafters. One look at The Lives of Man, however, quickly puts such preconceptions to rest. At more than 3 feet wide and...
In one of America’s most spectacular holiday displays, the Mission Inn presents its annual Festival of Lights for six weeks starting the day after Thanksgiving. More than four million electric bulbs decorate the square-block property in an extravaganza that includes upwards of 400 animated figures,...
Susan Kates, my favorite English professor at the University of Oklahoma, had just moved to the state from the Midwest when I was her student in the 1990s. I admired the way she embraced her new home. Often, she wore cowboy boots to class and...
Carved Chipped Chest by Anthony E. Martinez The landscape depicted in popular paintings of Northern New Mexico is where Anthony E. Martinez grew up, with a knife in his pocket, roaming the bosques, whittling wood. Living around carpinteros creating furnishings, combined with his childhood experiences, inspired...
Matt Fajkus doesn’t recall any “aha” moments on his path to architecture. Similarly, he can’t point to specific designers who inspired his career choice. But the founder of the award-winning Matt Fajkus Architecture does remember road trips across Texas with his parents, and being fascinated...