The Art Galleries of Austin Community College joined ACC’s fiftieth anniversary celebration with a welcoming exhibition of alumni artists.
Story by Marisela Perez Maita
Mural process pictures courtesy of The Art Galleries team.
This article was featured in the Fall 2023 issue of ACCENT Magazine
The exhibition Narrated Memories: Artworks by ACC Alumni Laurie Frick, Heather Parrish and Michael Villarreal – now on display in Gallery 2000 at Austin Community College’s Highland campus – explores storytelling through the recollection of memories with the artwork of three accomplished ACC alumni artists. Guided by Peter Bonfitto, Director of The Art Galleries (TAG) at ACC, with the collaborative effort of the TAG staff and the featured artists, Narrated Memories embodies art, education, and community.
The Idea and The Artists
Bonfitto curated the exhibition along with Gallery Assistant Norma Bickmore and Consulting Curator Erin Keeveris to celebrate ACC’s fiftieth anniversary, “We wanted artists that had a strong connection with ACC. Artists that would really have great stories that they could share” says Bonfitto.
The thorough search led them to the three artists that the gallery now presents, Laurie Frick, Heather Parrish, and Michael Villareal—all former ACC Art students who have gone on to gain recognition for their artistic practices at a national level. “This is an exhibition featuring artists who had been working for years in their own artistic practice, our job was to create a cohesive narrative within the exhibition” Bonfitto says.
The three artists have distinct styles but similar themes on human identity and time. Laurie Frick takes information from data sets and creates new visual and reflective narratives. Heather Parrish opens a door to the collective past of Austin, looking directly at the wounds of urban segregation. Michael Villareal explores the value of being in the present through his memories of home and childhood. In one way or another, the three artists explore the notion of memory and art as a means to create a new narrative of the past. The exhibition is called Narrated Memories because the artists are “taking information of some sort, personal, historic, or raw data, and using it to tell a new story,” Bonfitto explains.
Another aspect that the artists have in common is that they represent different types of ACC students. Olivia Spiers, the Gallery Coordinator for Outreach and Programming for TAG, says that the academic journey of the artist adds to the educational programming of the exhibition. “Michael Villarreal was a bit more of the traditional type of student. He was first generation, so he was the first person from his family to pursue higher education. . . .he pretty much started his academic journey at ACC like many students do when they come right from high school and they go to college” Spiers explains, “But Laurie Frick, had established a whole career in tech, and is what we consider a second-career student. She had a career and then ended it and then started taking classes at ACC and launched her artistic career.”
“Then, Heather Parrish is another type of student that we have at ACC, especially in the Art department. Sometimes we get students that continually take classes, and are non-degree seeking students.” Spiers explains. Parrish attended Studio Art classes at ACC from 2001 to 2011, during which time she focused on Printmaking/Metal Arts, and then pursued a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Notre Dame. No matter how they spent their time at ACC, all three artists went on to earn an MFA.
The artists in Narrated Memories represent different paths to art and education, bringing to the public an experience that is beyond visuals and reflecting experiences, but also an opportunity to connect with the diverse community of ACC and Austin. “This is a community college. It’s about community. All of those different categories of demographics, we want to have educational programming that matches.” Bonfitto explains.
TAG’s goal is to create an atmosphere where students and the general public feel comfortable asking questions and learning more about art in a conversational way, “We want to educate the general public. It’s an educational space as much as it’s a gallery.” Bonfitto says.
TAG Install Process and Creating an In-Gallery Mural
The TAG Team spent over a year and a half planning the exhibition, from doing research, selecting the artists, discussing the exhibition plans and making it come to fruition through the efforts of the TAG staff. “We approached all of the artists and had some preliminary conversations. I always want to know what they’re working on at that time, because it’s great to show works that they had been working on recently, as well as works that they’re known for” Bonfitto says.
The gallery exhibits former projects, such as the piece Felt Personality (2018) by Frick, as well as new projects from this year, such as all the paintings by Villarreal and Parrish’s installation piece Double Down. Some of these were specifically designed for the gallery, as is the case of the mural A Mood by Frick. TAG’s staff Bess Siritanapivat and Ellen Crofts worked on the install and design of the gallery while also leading the mural project. According to Siritanapivat, “Peter met with the artists, they came, looked at the space, and from there we kind of talked to them about which spaces made sense for what they were trying to do.”
It was important to visualize the space and find which part of the gallery made sense for their work, “That’s why Heather’s work is in that back area,” Bess says, “She wanted an enclosed space to build her installation.”
Siritanapivat and Crofts explain that organizing the gallery came with different challenges and processes. According to Crofts, “It was easier to see a vision for Villarreal’s artwork because they are complete, separate paintings. We sort of knew what it was going to look like, but not exactly.”
However, with Parrish, who envisioned an installation, Crofts explains, “we had to wait and see what it looked like. You couldn’t even visualize it. It’s like really a lot of different levels of seeing how it goes.”
But the challenge is exactly what made the project gratifying to the team, “That’s what’s so exciting about the job because different things happen with different parts of the show,” Siritanapivat says emphasizing Frick’s mural, which was unique in its creative collaboration with the TAG staff and Studio Art students.
The TAG team and Frick decided to use the north wall of the gallery for her mural, and collaborated with the ACC Music Department for the subject matter and musical score. They sent music compositions to Frick that were written by ACC music students to choose from. Among the pieces, Frick selected the music piece “A Mood” by ACC Music Composition student Elizabeth Vary.
Once the piece was selected, she started working on the design for the mural. As a data artist, Frick focuses on the patterns of the information she is analyzing. She studied the mathematical pattern and musical score of the piece, creating a vibrant, visual flow that maps the composition. In connection with the concept of Narrated Memories, the mural is an ephemeral project, and will be painted over once the exhibition is over.
She sent her design to the TAG team, who worked in the gallery to transfer her piece to the wall. Frick was not present while the design was painted; however, she and the mural team communicated throughout the whole process, “We corresponded with her by email. Sending pictures and receiving feedback back and forth” says Crofts.
At the beginning stages, the mural team transferred Frick’s design into Adobe Illustrator and then projected it onto the wall. The leads, Siritanapivat and Crofts, traced the image, working around lighting grids and fire alarms. The following hand-painted step included a team of eight people, from TAG and Arts and Digital Media staff to Honors Studio Art students. Each member worked together and around the other, picking a singular color at a time and filling in as many designated spaces as could be reached. The team consistently referred back to Frick’s design, the original musical score, and their own color-key to confirm accuracy of color placement.
Before finalizing the design, Frick sent color swatches to test them on the ACC campus walls. Once approved by the mural project leads, they decided on a paint-by-number style to paint the design. The colors were labeled one through thirteen in accordance with the music note they represented in the design. The 14th color was the gray outline of the mural, suggested by Ellen Crofts once she noticed a black outline may be visually too harsh. “We kind of pitched that to Frick. She agreed. Then she picked the gray that she wanted to go with the color palette.” Siritanapivat explains. “It was great to work with her and get her feedback. She had a very clear vision of what she wanted.”
From the initial idea to the final brushstrokes, A Mood took three weeks to complete. The mural team confesses that working and communicating with Frick by email, figuring out the process, and painting a mural for the first time in their lives was both exciting and challenging. Bailey Robinson-Forman, who was a major in Studio Arts at ACC and now works at the gallery as a Gallery Assistant, expresses the gratifying experience of collectively creating this piece.
“From a student perspective, helping out with this mural really allowed me to see what big projects like this look like from the other side of things, beyond just the fun of painting. It really can take a village to ensure all details are finalized to even begin a project of this scale” Robinson-Forman says.“Working without the artist on site was a unique experience as well, having to refer consistently to Laurie’s instructions, and checking with the team to make sure everyone was on the same page as we worked.”
The mural extends on the wall of the exhibition as a memory of shared creation. The history of art is filled with the studio collaboration that brings wide and challenging artworks together, just as when renaissance painter Michelangelo worked alongside apprentices to deliver his commissions. A Mood embraces the same cooperative accomplishments. “It is definitely an art tradition,” Siritanapivat reflects. As Robinson-Forman expresses herself, “I saw how impactful collaboration can be for different departments, like Art and Music at ACC for example, and what great opportunities it creates to invite people of other majors into our space to share and enjoy art.”
Be it from the artworks it exhibits to the process they were created, Narrated Memories is a gallery that appreciates the past and tells a new, collective story. The exhibition is on view in The Art Gallery in building 2000 at Highland campus through December 7.