The annual Artpace event known as Chalk it Up will take place this year again but in a modified format to fit our new pandemic-shaped reality. There will be no massive gathering of eager chalk artists downtown, creating murals along Houston Street and Main Avenue. Instead, both teams and individual artists will be spread around the city, all working in …

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — When Barbara Minarro received an invitation from Artpace to participate in this year’s Chalk It Up event, she eagerly accepted. “I love it! I had such a great time the first time I took part in it,” said the fabric artist who has had ties to Artpace for a number of years as an intern …

Today’s poem is by Alan Berecka, a poet and librarian at the Del Mar College in Corpus Christi. And its companion piece is the Angel of Death, a 1890 painting by English painter Evelyn De Morgan. The painting is now housed at the De Morgan Centre in Guildford, Surrey, England. Irony in the Time of COVID By Alan Berecka Irony …

When The Phantom of the Alamo premiered at the Magik Theater in 1996, it was a regular live stage show that live audiences enjoyed in the theater. The 2020 version, however, is a virtual theater experience. The Magik’s founder and longtime former director, Richard Rosen, decided to revive his original musical for streaming with a group of his former collaborators, …

We don’t get many opportunities to see Shakespearean plays these days but the Classic Theater of San Antonio has something truly special for us: a new production of Macbethto be performed outdoors in park settings. It opens tomorrow, Oct.2, at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, where it will run Friday-Sunday through Oct. 11, and then continue for six more shows …

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — The highly respected literary critic, Harold Bloom, wrote in his analysis of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that the relationship between Macbeth and his Lady Macbeth is “the best marriage in Shakespeare.” Though that may surprise a lot of theatergoers who seldom think of those two as a loving couple, actor John Stillwaggon who portrays Macbeth in the …

Natalia Trevino’s powerful poem is from a series “responding to the Seven Sorrows of Mary,” Mary being the mother of Jesus. “This sorrow poem is about her ache over the loss of her child, but also a response to the repeated loss of children due to the global pandemic and the loss of children due racism,” wrote Trevino in a …

For contemporary arts lovers, Blue Star’s Red Dot Show & Sale is a beloved annual tradition, which this year is somewhat different in a definitely good way. Forced by the pandemic to rethink the format of what used to be a one-night event for collectors, the organization has expanded Red Dot’s reach both in terms of featuring new artists in …

by JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — The Blue Star Contemporary’s Red Dot Art Sale is always a big deal but this year it’s a deal with a twist. Instead of packing 500 collectors and other art lovers into the Blue Star galleries during a single big party – which is, of course, verboten at this time – the organization decided to …

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — Arts organization have been hit hard by the COVID pandemic and the measures put in place to prevent the spread of the disease. Many closed their doors for months, furloughed employees, halting programming and worried about long-term survival. The hardest hit were small performing arts companies that depend on ticket sales and do not have …