Georgetown Arts & Culture

At the July 2021 Board meeting, the City of Georgetown Arts & Culture Board approved $12,650 in grants to local arts and culture organizations for the 2021 Round II grant cycle. The grants will help fund local arts and cultural programming that includes visual art, music, performing art, and history in Georgetown.

The events and programs funded include:

Central Texas Philharmonic, Inc. the Patriotic Pops Concert by The Central Texas Philharmonic – $5,000

Congregation Havurah Shalom for the ANNE FRANK – Let Me Be Myself Traveling Exhibit – $2,500

Williamson County Symphony Orchestra Society the Spring Concert in Georgetown – $2,500

Georgetown Texas Photography Festival for the Georgetown Texas Photography Festival 2022 – $1,250

Preservation Georgetown for Art at Grace Heritage – Hidden Gems of Georgetown – $500

Artists Molly Fonseca & Kayur Patel for the Healing Artists Workshop and Performance – Stories of Our People – $500

Gary Anderson dba AndersonArt for Jingle Georgetown – $400

Funds are for events and programs taking place in Georgetown between October 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022.

The next Georgetown Arts and Culture grant cycle will accept proposals December 1 – December 31 for events and programs occurring from April 2022 through September 2022.

The Georgetown Arts and Culture Board – in collaboration with Georgetown Title Company – has selected the artist for the mural at Georgetown Title. This mural is the first commercial mural that is part of the Percent for Public Art Adjacent to Capital Improvement Projects. The Georgetown Title building is adjacent to two Public Improvements Projects – Rock Street Sidewalk Improvements and the new 8th Street Parking Lot. This program presents an opportunity for public art to beautify the surrounding spaces that have become more visible to the public.

Selected artist Molly Keen has created a mural design consisting of abstract shapes and colors while highlighting a train element that represents the history of the site, which was once home to Belford Lumber Company and a stop on the railroad. The mural design will undergo a few small revisions with installation to begin in late spring/summer.

Ms. Keen is originally from the Pacific Northwest and is a graduate of Washington State University with a BFA. Keen has spent her career traveling the world, painting 40+ whimsically colored, large-scale murals. Her works are spread across 34 cities and 22 countries, including several acrylic murals as part of residencies in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and Cabanconde, Peru — known for their playful palettes and flowing twists that conjure child-like emotions. For more information on the artist and to view samples of her work, please visit her website by clicking here.

Students at Georgetown High School plan to install a mural on the downtown building at 101 E. Seventh St. Now home to Tejas Meat Supply, the building formerly housed Georgetown Municipal Court.

The Georgetown Arts and Culture Advisory Board selected sophomore Peyton Vega’s design from among 16 student designs submitted by art instructor Angela Morin. Morin selected this public art activity as an educational opportunity for her students as part of the Art 1 curriculum.

“The students are learning how they can use art to communicate and connect with others within their community,” Morin said. “They also spent the entire year extensively learning about art history and the legacy that people who came before us created through art. With the creation of the mural, the students will now feel even more connected to that history, because they will be connected to a piece of Georgetown history.”

The mural will be painted first on “ripstop” mural fabric and adhered to the wall of the building. Vega and other students will paint the mural in the classroom during late May. Installation is scheduled for the first week of June.

The goal of this project is to continue to add to the mural every year. This first section of the mural, Everyone Deserves Kindness, will claim only a small portion of the wall, which continues the length of the long alleyway between Tejas Meat Supply and the Baked Bear. The art students and their instructor have worked with Brady Clark of Tejas Meat Supply on the placement and size of this first mural section.  The Tejas Meat Supply team, as well as the property owner of the building, say they are excited about further collaboration with Georgetown ISD and student artists on the annual additions to the mural.

The mural is jointly sponsored by Georgetown ISD and the City’s Arts and Culture Board. For updates on the project, as well as information on other art and cultural events in the downtown Georgetown cultural district, visit arts.georgetown.org.

This program received a Cultural District Grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Continue reading “Dream with Us: The Future of Public Spaces”

Artist and muralist Jason Tetlak of Jacksonville, FL was selected by the Georgetown Animal Shelter and the Georgetown Arts and Culture Board to design and install the upcoming mural at the shelter. Mr. Tetlak has completed mural projects across the country, including “No Sleep” – a mural in Jacksonville featuring the Beastie Boys and winner of the Guinness World Record for largest 3D/Anaglyph painting.

Tetlak says he was very interested in submitting his design for this mural project for a number of reasons. “First, I enjoy being a part of projects that are specifically aimed at leveraging art to transform public spaces. I have seen first hand how these types of projects can bring about positive change, and how public art can draw attention to a business or location. Additionally, I am excited by the idea of using public art as a platform to promote the shelter’s mission of providing animals with a second chance, and hopefully use my art to draw more people’s attention to the shelter. Ultimately I hope my colorful design will get more people involved either directly or indirectly in helping the shelter and the animals that are cared for there.”

The mural design will undergo some minor revisions and is scheduled for installation this spring. For more information on the artist, Jason Tetlak, and to view examples of his work, please visit his Instagram page by clicking here.

Final design of the mural, “Pick Me” is shown below.

At the January 2021 Board meeting, the City of Georgetown Arts & Culture Board approved $11,072 in grants to local arts and culture organizations for the 2021 Round I grant cycle. The grants will help fund local arts and cultural programming that includes visual art, music, performing art, and arts education in Georgetown.

The events and programs funded include:

East View High School Percussion Studio for EVHS Percussion Professional Recording Sessions – $1,500

Georgeotwn High School Jazz Band for Georgetown Virtual Jazz Festival – $1,500

Texas Bach Festival for Texas Bach Festival 2021 Season “Bach 4 More” – $2,250

Full Circle for FULL CIRCLE TALKS: By & For Creatives – $247

Georgetown Art Works for The Black Women’s Epoch at Georgetown Art Center – $2,050

The Georgetown Palace Theatre for Adaptive Theatre for All: Summer Programs – $2,025

Cardboard Cinema Productions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream – $1,500

Funds are for events and programs taking place in Georgetown between April 2021 and September 2021.

The next Georgetown Arts and Culture grant cycle will accept proposals June 1 – June 30 for events and programs occuring from October 2021 through March 2022.

The current exhibition at City Hall is on exhibit from January – March 2020. The exhibit features recent work by Southwestern University student graduate Julia Canfield. Artwork can be viewed Monday – Friday, 8am-5pm.

In Polymer Empire, Julia Canfield explores the ironic beauty and luminosity of single-use shopping bags by engaging with ideas of nature versus humanity; how humans contaminate nature, and vice versa. Canfield studies the forms, textures, and transparencies of plastic bags, highlighting their strange allure through abstraction. In order to express the implications of globalised consumerism, many of the paintings’ compositions are inspired by maps of areas which either produce or suffer from high levels of plastic pollution. Through this work, viewers may confront the complex emotions which can arise from the paradox of humanity’s guilty fascination with consumerism.

Julia Canfield is a recent graduate of Southwestern University with a BA in Studio Arts with a focus in oil painting. She is interested in the use of beauty and subtlety in art as a means to encourage deeper reflection and mindfulness, and to explore the design of our world. Canfield currently resides in Portland, Oregon, but maintains roots in the Austin area. Follow her on Instagram at @julia_can_art, or visit juliarae.wordpress.com for more information.

The Gallery Wall at City Hall will exhibit two local artists per year, an exhibition of Georgetown Independent School District Advanced Placement student artwork, and an exhibition of Southwestern University student artwork. The exhibitions are by invitation and are designed to align with current Georgetown Arts and Culture Programming. To be considered for an invitation by the Georgetown Arts and Culture Board, local artists may submit their resume and portfolio to arts@georgetown.org.