Arts

I have to be honest with you. Eighteen months ago, I truly wondered what on earth I was doing here. “Here,” meaning a seat on the Advisory Panel for Modern in San Antonio, dedicated to highlighting the best and brightest of local modern design, art, places, and events. Yes, I’m a Creative Director at the agency that MiSA came to for its brand identity and website design and development, but beyond that, I questioned the value I could bring to a meaningful discussion on modern design and art in our city.

Ten years ago the local painter, Rex Hausmann, had a solo exhibition in New York City and dreamed of one day bringing San Antonio artists back with him to have a group show.

Fiesta medals truly are an expression of celebration and San Antonio’s culture. Every year in preparation for Fiesta (our annual city-wide week-long party at the end of April), organizations and individuals around the city take to sketching on napkins or even opening up graphics programs to get cracking on a design.  We wanted to provide an opportunity to highlight what people are doing to contribute to the wonderful burst of festivity that Fiesta brings, specifically expressed through the wearable art of Fiesta medals!

If you aren’t familiar with the iconic modern furniture company, Knoll International, then allow us to take you on a journey through a piece of design history with a local connection. The company was founded by Hans Knoll in 1938 in New York City, and after his death in 1955, his wife Florence Knoll took over as head of the company.  Florence Knoll was not just a business owner but a forward-thinking designer.

The 20th century brought about rapid advancements in societies around the globe at a rate that arguably rivaled any previous millennia in recorded history. Some of these advancements brought about exciting technological marvels such as the application of electricity, indoor plumbing, transportation, computers, mass production, the use of steel in high-rise building construction, photography, motion pictures, and the list goes on.

This weekend, January 20th to be exact, is your last chance to see the ‘Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work’ exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art. If you love to sketch or love watercolor as a medium, this exhibit will be especially interesting to you. It features a full range of the artist/architect’s early to late works.

Last year was a great one for M!SA as we continued to highlight many different talented local people and projects!  Below are our top 5 most viewed articles of 2018!

Local artist, educator, designer, Analy Diego will soon have an exhibition of her wonderful art illustrations where 100% of the proceeds of the artwork sold will go toward scholarships for students earning degrees in the UTSA College of Architecture, Construction, and Planning (or CACP).

Local artist, Louis Vega Treviño was born and raised in San Antonio. In a time and place where it wasn’t cool to be smart, the young Treviño would sit with his fellow middle school classmates playing chess to pass the time. He was even threatened physically once after winning a chess match against one of his classmates. “That school was rough, but I was a nerd”, he told M!SA, after discussing his shift from Catholic school to a public middle school in the area.

Raul Gonzalez is a well-known visual artist that resides here in San Antonio. Originally from Houston, Raul has been living and working in San Antonio for 6 years. He attended the University of Texas at San Antonio and attained a graduate degree in 2014 focusing on painting, printmaking, new media, and performance.