Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine (Transcript now available on-line for Marfa Mondays #4)

Transcript now available for 
ye olde podcast #4
Avram Dumitrescu, 
an Artist in Alpine

The Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project proceeds.... as those of you who follow this blog well know, the most recent of the projected 24 podcasts is #17, an interview with Texas historian Lonn Taylor in Fort Davis. 

Meanwhile, I've been working my way back to the beginning, posting transcripts of 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and now... drumroll.... 4, Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine. About his chicken portraits, Dumitrescu says:

"When we moved to Alpine, our landlords had about 30 chickens. Patty and Cindy, they're on the west edge of town...that's where I had my first experience being around chickens, because until then it was just stuff I'd eat. They're basically mini-dinosaurs. Every time I go in, I'm always worried if I fall, and they start pecking me to death like in some horror movie... because they see red, they run to it and attack it. They're very interesting characters, and I think what really made me laugh was Patty and Cindy had named them after characters from "The Sopranos." 


> Read the complete transcript of this podcast or, better yet, listen in to "Avram Dumitrescu, an Artist in Alpine" (on either podomatic or iTunes, both free).

> All Marfa Mondays Podcasts (and most transcripts)

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Lonn Taylor's Texas People, Texas Places

Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America by Richard Parker

Q & A with "Listen Well" podcaster Margaret Dulaney

Marfa Mondays Podcast #4: Avram Dumitrescu, An Artist in Alpine

The monthly Marfa Mondays podcast is live: an interview with Avram Dumitrescu, an artist whose paintings have been featured in "Marfans: Art from the Plateau" at the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery in Odessa, and also showcased in Cenizo Journal. A native of the Channel Islands and raised in Belfast, Dumitrescu earned a bachelor's degree and Masters in Applied Arts from the University of Ulster at Belfast. He is married to journalist Megan Wilde. For more about Dumitrescu, and to view his portfolio, visit www.onlineavram.com.

Recorded in late January 2012. (About 36 minutes)

>>Click here to listen in.

Marfa Mondays Podcast #3: Mary Bones on the Lost Art Colony

Just posted: the third podcast in the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project 2012-2013:

>> Click here to listen in


Yours Truly interviews Mary Bones, curator of the exhibit "The Lost Colony: Texas Regionalist Paintings," in the Museum of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas.

The Lost Colony refers to the summer art colony at Sul Ross which began in 1932 and ended somewhat mysteriously in 1950. Alpine is 30 minutes northeast of Marfa-- right next door. Of the region, as Michael Duty writes in the introduction to the exhibit's catalog, "It... has long called to artists who have been captivated by its natural beauty, its history, and its people. In recent times, the area has also drawn the attention of writers and reporters who have written numerous articles touting the area's prominence as something of a center, albeit a far flung one, for contemporary art. Those articles focus primarily on Marfa and the influence that minimalist sculptor Donald Judd has had on the town..." Later, Duty adds, that Judd "was certainly not the first artist to be so captivated".

Mary Bones explains the inspiration for the exhibit, and shares the stories about and friendships of some of the painters, in particular Texan Julius Woeltz and his teacher Xavier González, a native of Spain, both of whom made trips to Mexico City to study the Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.

Some of the other painters discussed are Mabel Vandiver, Anna Keener, Elizabeth Keefer, Coreen Mary Spellman, Harry Anthony De Young, Beatrice Cuming, Otis Dozier, William Lester, James Swann, Ethel Edwards, Alice Reynolds, and Juanita Montgomery. Several of these paintings can be seen in the article by Mary Bones, "The Lost Colony: Texas Regionalist Paintings - Rediscovering an Artistic Past," Cenizo Journal, 4th Quarter 2011.

>>Previous Marfa Mondays podcast: Charles Angell in the Big Bend.

>>For more Marfa Mondays podcasts, and to read about the project, please visit www.cmmayo.com/marfa