Meeting at Frankeen Price's Home - Dec, 16th 2008

Oh, the weather outside was frightful, but the fire, the food, and Frankeen Price's fabulous hospitality in her gorgeous home were so delightful that we celebrated the season in style at our December meeting. We all gathered inspiration from each other as we shared triumphs of the past and dreams of the future. Congratulations to Hildegard Slaughter for her show and sales at the Joan Grona gallery and to Johanna Gardner for her interview with Jessica Rector, of the Jessica Rector Online Radio Show. And no one outgrows show and tell when it involves our latest piece de resistance!

Johanna had the terrific idea of a round robin painting. One of us would start a piece and then pass it along for one or two others to add to it. What fun it will be to see how the pieces turn out when several of us have a hand in them! We will receive the substrates at the next meeting.
We also discussed better ways of photographing and posting our work and will be learning more about that in the near future. As always, we discussed our favorite tools and techniques of the trade as well as our ongoing safety concerns.

Our next meeting will be Saturday, January 17 at the home studio of Jules Ogan. Please call her at 830-446-2072 or e-mail jules_art@msn.com for directions. We decided to start all meetings at the uniform time of 10:30 to make it easier on our memories. We hope to see you there!

Until then, holiday blessings to you and yours. Stay safe and warm, and may the fires of encaustic inspiration burn ever brightly.

(written by our fabulous artist and writer, Beth Preston)

Upcoming Meetings....2009

January 17 10:30-12:30 Home and Studio of Jules Ogan
February 17 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
March 21 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
April 21 10:30-12:30 Home and Studio of Adrian
Highsmith
May 16 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
June 16 10:30-12:30 TBA
July 18 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
August 18 10:30-12:30 Home and Studio of Debbie
Houston and Jayne Howell
September 19 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
October 20 10:30-12:30 TBA
November 21 10:30-12:30 Inn on the Riverwalk
December 15 10:30-12:30 TBA

Meeting at the Inn on the Riverwalk - Nov, 21st 2008

The cold front may have come in to San Antonio, but we were waxing warm and eloquent discussing fall things bright and beautiful at our November meeting at Inn on the Riverwalk. Welcome to new members Joyce Howell, Deborah Houston, Adrian Highsmith, and Hildegard Slaughter. They were greeted by founding members Michelle Belto, Johanna Gardner, Steven DaLuz, Beth Preston, Frankeen Price, and Jules Ogan. Thanks again to Johanna Gardner for the use of her lovely inn, a perfect getaway spot and site of First Friday art happenings in downtown San Antonio. Encaustic artists may contact Johanna for a First Friday showing.

The room was abuzz as we showed our latest artwork and shared resources and techniques. We all felt the excitement building like layers of wax as we compared notes on the recent joint Texas Wax-Austin/San Antonio encaustic show, "Fused Expressions," at Bay 6 Gallery and Studio in Austin and talked about the upcoming encaustic show, "Degrees," which will open at M2 Gallery in Houston May 9, 2009, and run through May 31. The show will then travel to the other three cities in the Texas Wax group, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. The purpose of this show is to introduce encaustics to Texas. We also discussed gallery and workshop options that would coincide with the show's arrival in San Antonio. We are still waiting to hear whether our proposal for a group encaustic demo at Luminaria, a one-evening art event in San Antonio, March 14, 2009, has been accepted. Thank you to Johanna Gardner for submitting the proposal and for her great work putting together the blogspot. Happy birthday wishes and special thanks to Michelle Belto, our fearless leader, for her work in organizing and facilitating our meetings.

Upcoming shows of members include Steve DaLuz, oil and mixed media, at AnArte Gallery in San Antonio through Nov. 29, and Buchanan Gallery in Houston opening Dec. 6 and running for about a month. Kudos to Steve for the great feature article on "72," the show at AnArte Gallery, in S.A. Life in Sunday's "San Antonio Express News." Also, Michelle Belto and Beth Preston will be showing encuastics at the Euclid Avenue art show Saturday, Dec. 6 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 7, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Frankeen Price will host the December meeting at her home studio on December 16th from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Bring a dish to share and a small gift of artwork to exchange.

Congratulations to all for such high quality work. It is wonderful to see the range in application of this new-old medium and exciting to be on the cutting edge of its reintroduction to the art world.

Until the next meeting, wax prolific!


Meetings held every other month (

San Antonio Wax Artists Group is Born.

Michelle Belto lead the meeting.
· Welcome and Overview of Texas Wax
Five eager founding members of Texas Wax/San Antonio gathered on a cool Saturday morning on the outdoor deck overlooking the Riverwalk at Inn on the Riverwalk. It was a delightful and momentous meeting. As indicated in the invitational e-mail, some members of this group had been meeting with Texas Wax/Austin since it’s inception. As a new branch of Texas Wax, we in San Antonio, are looking forward to adding our own “damar” to the mix.

· Self-introduction of members and their art
Most of the members brought a sample of their work. As we have been in Austin, we were impressed with the variety and scope of the work already being done in wax.

· Discussion of Meeting Details
After some discussion about meeting times and dates, we set the next meeting for Tuesday, Oct. 14 10:00-12:00 at the home of Michelle Belto-Schraub. The meeting will be followed with a pot-luck lunch. Since all of the members were located North Central/Northwest and preferred week days to busy Saturdays, we set the meeting time and day to accommodate. There was concern, however, that a mid-day meeting would not be possible for some that might be interested in Texas Wax. The November meeting is scheduled on November 22 back at the Inn. It will begin at 10:30 to accommodate their breakfast schedule. We will evaluate at that time and select a permanent day/time and location (or floating location).

· Use of Blogspot
Like the other Texas Wax groups (Dallas/Houston/Austin) we will set up a Blogspot. It can be marketed through the Texas Wax card designed by Deanna and used to promote communication between the four groups.

Some upcoming opportunities for us all:
· Juried Show for TEXAS WAX
Gwen Plunkett of Texas Wax/Houston has contacted Max at M2Gallery on 19th about an exhibition for the group. He has scheduled the month of May 2009 for us with the following dates secure: May 4, work to the gallery. May 9th opening reception 7-9. May 31, exhibit ends. The gallery takes a 35% commission on anything sold. There is no rental fee. We are responsible for curating/juring, postcards and reception. Each of the other Texas Wax chairs are looking for a gallery to host a like reception for the Fall/Spring of 2009-2010, having the exhibit travel to Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. We would be touting this as the introduction of Encaustics and Texas Wax to Texas. We are also looking at the possibility of having accompanying workshops for a Texas Wax Play Day to coincide with the opening of the exhibit in each city.

· Luminaria - March 14, 2008
Texas Wax/SA has decided to host a demonstration/exhibit in conjunction with Luminaria, the City-wide celebration of the arts scheduled for March 14, 2009. Johanna will research the application process and present ideas to the group at the next meeting.

· Joint workshops in Fall/Spring with Austin
We have planned to do a joint Encaustics Day once a semester, with Austin hosting a session and San Antonio hosting a session each year. With the closeness of the two communities we thought that the cross-pollination of ideas and experiences would be especially helpful to build the community of Texas Wax. We are suggesting that Austin take the lead on the first workshop, probably in the Spring. We will host the Fall workshop in 2009.

· “Fused Expression” Encaustics Show in Austin
We have been invited to participate in the first Texas Wax show that will be held at Bay6Studios beginning Nov 1-16. This is a non-juried show with the expenses of a reception and advertising to be shared by the participants. Bay6 has become known in Austin for its GREAT OPENINGS with a large attendance, great food and live entertainment. The estimate at this time is $50 per participant. If you would like a prospectus, contact Sharon Kylekuhn at bay6studio@gmail.com.

It was an excellent first meeting. Look forward to seeing everyone again in October!