'The Extra-ordinary Beauty of What Is…'

The Walkers’ Gallery invites the public to its first art exhibit reception of 2019, “The Extra-ordinary Beauty of What Is…” The reception will take place today from 5 to 7 p.m. at the San Marcos Activity Center, 501 E. Hopkins St.

The theme for this exhibit was inspired by a group in Wimberley that created a photography exhibition called the “Texas Bold Beauty Project.”  

The Texas Bold Beauty Project is a year-long photography exhibit featuring beautiful Texas women, with courage, drive, passion and with disabilities that don’t hold them back. Twenty original images captured by talented Texas photographers tell the story of these women. The photographs are inspiring, as are the individual stories of each model.  

In the other part of the exhibit, area artists have submitted diverse responses from microscopic photos of molds and fungi by Dutch artist Wim Egmond to exquisitely rendered watercolors by Germaine Tuff, found object sculpture royalty by Clay DeStefano, and tiny ink drawings by Lucy Rose Till-Campbell.  

"The Queen" by artist Clay DeStefano.

In celebrating “The Extra-ordinary Beauty of What Is…,” the Walkers’ Gallery affirms its dedication to the understanding that seeing beauty is in the eye of every beholder.  

Marilyn Monroe, who was turned into a model of “perfect beauty,” is famous for having said, “Imperfection is beauty.”  In the musical “Cinderella” Rodgers and Hammerstein posed a profound question in the Prince's song: “Do I love you because you’re beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?”

Seeing beauty in ordinary things can be a challenge, but when it happens, it liberates us to greater love and breaks us free from all kinds of limiting standards and judgements, comparisons and competitions. Too often our brains hold a tyrannical sieve over our eyes, rejecting what is unfamiliar, “imperfect” or "ordinary."

The Japanese have an aesthetic term, “Wabi-sabi,” the idea that beauty is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, and can be captured in the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.   

A mission of the Walkers’ Gallery is to bring new visual challenges and possibilities to the many beautiful people who travel through its halls. Join them this evening to meet the artists and celebrate the start of a new year of art.  There will have be musical entertainment by Tracy Weinberg and Friends and light refreshments will be served.