Lauren Owens

Cole Art Center to host 25th Texas National competition

The Cole Art Center at the Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches is hosting the
25thTexas National Art Competition & Exhibition, starting with the reception at 5 p.m. Saturday.

According to John Handley, director of SFA Art Galleries, the first Texas National competition
was established under former galleries director Eloise Adams and took place in the Griffith
Gallery. The event is free to attend.

“We get work from students. We get work from really established artists,” Handley said. “It’s
kind of interesting to see who enters.”

This year, Michelle White, senior curator of the Menil Collection in Houston, will be judging for
the competition. She will also be giving a public talk before the reception.

White attended university in London, received her B.A. from the University of California, San
Diego, and her M.A. from Tufts University. White has lectured at the Glassell School of Art,
Rice University and Southern Methodist University and has contributed articles and essays at
Modern Painters, Art Papers, Spot, Dwell, Glasstire and Artlies.

“We always have this little competition here where we try to guess who’s going to get first,
second and third, and we’re never right,” Handley said.

The event usually brings in around 300 people and will feature close to 40 different artists. SFA
hospitality students will prepare and serve food at the event.

“This show is going to have something in it that everybody’s going to like because it’s close to
forty different artists doing work in all sorts of different mediums, and so you’re really going to
find something in the show that you go 'hmm, how did that get chosen?' and then you're going to
find something where you go 'wow, I wish I had that on my wall,'" said Alisa Steed, event
coordinator of SFA Art Galleries. “It really offers all types of art that if you’re not attracted to
modern art, there’s something in there that you will be attracted to.”
Lauren Owens

According to Handley, there were a thousand entries for this year’s competition, and only a few
were selected. Out of the artists whose work was selected, two are current SFA students and two
are recent SFA graduates.

Sara Gray, an alumna from Garland who graduated last December with a B.F.A. in studio art
with an emphasis in photography and secondary concentration in metalworking, entered a digital
photograph she took of a fig tree at her great-grandmother’s house.

“I used this image in my senior show last November, and quite a few people seemed to connect
with it, so I decided to try my luck and enter it into a few exhibitions as well,” Gray said.

Gray said that she was excited to find out that her work had been selected for the Texas
National show. She said it’s the first show her work has been selected for post-graduation and
that it encouraged her to keep participating in others like it.

“I’m very grateful to have received this opportunity, especially in a place that I called home for
several years,” Gray said.

“It gives me an excuse to come back to Nacogdoches to visit, and also, I feel that seeing alumni
work in galleries can be encouraging to current art students.”

Sarah Jentsch, SFA alumna from Etoile who graduated last semester with a major in art with a
specialization in print making and painting, entered a lithograph titled “Meadowlarks in Spring.”
She said that her work, including this one, often deals with themes of life and death by using
personal symbols, a reoccurring one being birds.

“This piece is one of my favorites, and I’m proud of its emotional resonance and the success of
the lithographic process, a complicated print making technique that can often fail, ruining the
image,” Jentsch said.
Lauren Owens

Jentsch is familiar with the Texas National competition; she said she was a part of it two years
ago. However, she also said that the experience of applying and entering shows teaches her
something new every time.

“Texas National is always full of great art, and due to the changing juror every year, the show
has a completely different aesthetic, which makes it especially interesting to attend and be a part
of,” Jentsch said.

“I’m happy to be a part of the event and can’t wait for everyone to see my work.”