Meeting Place: Highland Campus, Gallery 2000 (HLC 2.2450)

Time: 4:30pm 

This in-gallery talk will feature Gallery Director Peter Bonfitto and Curatorial Assistant Norma Bickmore, as they walk participants through the newest exhibition Narrated Memories: Artworks by ACC Alumni Laurie Frick, Heather Parrish, and Michael Villarreal. 

Meeting Place: Highland Campus, Gallery 2000 (HLC 2.2450)

Time: 4:30pm 

This in-gallery talk will focus on the composition behind Laurie Frick’s mural A Mood (more information below). Elizabeth Vary, composer and ACC alumni, will join us for a discussion about her musical composition, alongside ACC Music Professor Steven Sodders. This session will also include a live, in-gallery performance of the piece by Julia Watkins-Davis (voice), Julie Linder (clarinet), and Valeria Diaz-Navarro (piano).

About A Mood: 

Data artist Laurie Frick has created a unique process for merging the mathematical principles of music with the visual arts by mapping the inherent rhythms and patterns from musical scores. For this project, Frick selected ACC Music Composition student Elizabeth Vary’s melodic composition entitled “A Mood.”  Drawing inspiration from the piece’s musical flow and repetitive elements, Frick’s artwork is a vibrant system of patterns that emerged from her study of the musical score. Each line, shape, or color correlates to a rest or letter notation, building a pattern that reflects the mathematical roots of music composition. This mural project is a collaboration between Frick, The Art Galleries (TAG) at Austin Community College, and the ACC Music Department. A Mood was hand painted by TAG staff and ACC Studio Art students. 

Meeting Place: Highland Campus, Gallery 2000 (HLC 2.2450)

Time: 3:00pm

This in-gallery talk will focus on Heather Parrish’s Double Down (more information below) and the ways in which art can be a catalyst for political discourse and engagement. This roundtable discussion is held in conjunction with the Community College Humanities Association 2023 National Conference and will include the following speakers: Bernardo Diaz (Art Department, Chair), Yousif Del Valle, (Art Department, Associate Professor), and Madeline Kinkel (Humanities & Religion, Assistant Professor). 

About Double Down:

Heather Parrish’s Double Down, featured in Narrated Memories, is a collaboration with Katherine Leah Pace, an urban environmental historian whose research examines these lesser-known layers of history surrounding Waller Creek. 

Waller Creek is a central waterway that runs through the heart of downtown Austin. This stream has been used to create the city’s well-known east-west geographic divide, which has become a marker of racial segregation through the city’s history. During the post-Civil-War period, formerly-enslaved people were settled along the banks of Waller Creek–an area prone to natural flooding cycles. In the Jim Crow era, a 1928 city plan included racial boundaries east of Waller Creek, delineating where Black, Mexican-American, and immigrant populations could live. Starting in the 1950s, construction of I-35 reinforced this color line, while causing neighborhood disruptions and heavy pollution. On-going beautification initiatives, aimed to attract investment, such as the creation of parks, trails, and underground tunnels along Waller Creek have exacerbated population displacement with environmental consequences.

Meeting Place: Highland Campus, Gallery 2000 (HLC 2.2450)

Time: 1:00pm

In this session, Creative Writing Department Chair Prudence Arceneaux and Professor Katie McClendon will be reading poems and excerpts that correspond with the themes found with the artworks in Narrated Memories.