Georgetown Arts & Culture

The City of Georgetown Arts and Culture Board has awarded Marble Falls sculptor Dan Pogue the First Prize award in this year’s 2019-2020 City Sculpture Tour, a juried year-long outdoor exhibition in the historic Downtown Georgetown Cultural District. Pogue won for his piece “One Trick Pony”, a cast bronze sculpture inspired by carousel ponies. The sculpture is located at the corner of Austin Avenue and 6th Street.

Second Prize went to Anthony St. James for his piece “Remember When,” a giant steel bicycle crafted from steel, stainless steel, and antique industrial wheels. This piece is located in front of the Georgetown Public Library 8th Street entrance.

Sculpture Tour artists and their awards are:

First Prize:
Dan Pogue, “One Trick Pony”

Second Prize:
Anthony St. James, “Remember When”

Honorable Mention:
Anthony St. James, “Cloud Kaleidoscope
Mary Paige Huey, “Garden Femme”
David Southerland, “Healing Hand”
Cindy Debold, “In and Out of the Box”
Steve Parker, “Lo Fi Cycle”
John Mark Luke, “Wastin’ Away Again”
Laura Sturtz, “Cheshire Cat”
Laura Sturtz, “Hands”
Cindy Debold, “Joy”
Jay Schaan, “Quest for Knowledge”
Laura Sturtz, “High Stepping Dancer”

The City of Georgetown Arts & Culture Board selected 11 of these 2019-2020 Sculpture Tour pieces from a total of 20 pieces submitted for consideration by 14 artists. Two sculptures, “Hands” by Laura Sturtz and “Quest for Knowledge” by Jay Schaan, were part of the 2018-2019 Sculpture Tour and will remain into the 2019-2020 tour due to popularity. All Sculptures in the current tour will remain on exhibit through October 2020.

To view an interactive map of the Sculpture Tour, click here.

An open Call for Entries for the annual City Sculpture Tour is posted from June 1st to August 1st every year.

Continue reading “City Hall Gallery Features Artwork by Norma Clark”

On Thursday, October 24th from 9am-7pm, the Arts and Culture Board will host a community painting party for community members to come out and help paint portions of the “Preserving History” mural that honors Mary Smith Bailey, founder of the Mary Bailey Head Start Center in Georgetown.  This is a unique opportunity to engage and collaborate with local artists Devon Clarkson and Norma Clark as they create an artistic backdrop to the historic African American Shotgun House.

You must sign up for a one-hour time slot to paint.  There are 6 openings available per time slot, and all materials are provided.

To sign up for your time slot, please call or email Amanda Still, Arts & Culture Coordinator, at (512) 930-8471 or arts@georgetown.org

Location: Georgetown City Hall; 808 Martin Luther King Jr St

The current exhibit at City Hall features local artist Gary Anderson from July 1 – September 31.

“Compelled to explore discarded, anachronistic, and misplaced items, Gary Anderson’s work endeavors to offer objects an afterlife within other forms. By performing repetitive and rhythmic artistic tasks, he creates families of related shapes and textures, resulting in the discovery of new sets, groups, and configurations. Individual reincarnated works materialize in their newly assigned place, beckoning us to contemplate and reflect.”

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.  Local artists interested in being considered to exhibit may submit their resume and portfolio to arts@georgetown.org

At the July 2019 Board meeting, the City of Georgetown Arts & Culture Board approved $10,000 in grants to local nonprofit organizations and schools. The grants will help fund local poetry, literature, visual art, music, theatre, and film events and programs in Georgetown.

The Georgetown arts and culture community is expanding and developing quickly, as evidenced by the number of arts and culture organizations that have never applied for a Georgetown Arts and Culture grant before.  In addition to the traditional art, music, theatre, and cultural heritage grant applications, it’s great to see funding requests for poetry, literature, and film.  Non-traditional musical perfomances such as pop-up, outdoor Baroque concerts and symphony performances of popular cartoon theme songs, as well as theatre arts performances such as magic shows are some examples of new genres popping up in our local arts and culture scene.

The events and programs funded in this grant cycle include:

Austin Opera for Austin Opera LIVE at the Georgetown Public Library – $661
Cinematic Symphony for Toon Tunes – Animation Concert – $1200
Elementary GISD Librarians for San Gabriel River Reader Author Presentation – $1760
Georgetown Poetry Festival for Georgetown Poetry Festival – $700
Georgetown Texas Photography for Georgetown Texas Photography Festival Co-Hosted by the Williamson Museum (Second Annual) – $772
Magic Hotline for Magic Mondays at Boys and Girls Club! – $500
New Vintage Baroque for New Vintage Baroque Pop-Up Concert Series – $1142
The Georgetown Palace Theatre for Inclusion in the Theatre – $1200
Southwestern University for Georgetown Green Film Series – $865
Writers’ League of Texas for Texas Writes: Georgetown – $1200

Funds are for events and programs taking place in Georgetown between October 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020.

The Georgetown Arts and Culture Board is now inviting grant proposals for art, music, theatre, dance, and cultural heritage events or projects occurring Oct. 2019-March 2020 .

Nonprofit organizations, schools, informal arts and culture organizations, and individual artists who are creating public art, arts and culture programming, or an event open to the public are eligible to apply.

The grant proposal form for events and programs occurring Oct. 2019-March 2020 will be live at 12:01 am on June 1, 2019 and will close at 11:59 pm on June 30, 2019. Click here to go to the form:

Grant Proposal Form

For more information, please visit the grant page.

The Mayor and the City of Georgetown would like to pay tribute to Mary Ellen Butler of the Georgetown Palace Theatre for her contributions to the arts and culture scene of Georgetown and honor her for her extraordinary talents and achievements.  The Mayor will present Mary Ellen Butler with a mayoral proclamation at 6 PM on June 11 at the regular Council meeting.

Mary Ellen Butler directed her first play, Our Town, at the Georgetown Palace Theatre in 2002.  She served on the board of directors of the theatre and was hired as the Artistic Director in 2003.  She remained in that position until her retirement in March, 2019.  Mary Ellen played a critical role in bringing the Palace from near-bankruptcy to a multi-million dollar non-profit organization.  She helped establish the Palace as an anchor for the downtown which assisted Georgetown in becoming recognized as an official Cultural District by the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019 was proclaimed “Lady of Georgetown” and “Colorful Georgetown” Day in a Mayoral Proclamation for the art students from Eastview High School who were selected to participate in the City of Georgetown’s Utility Box Art Project.

“Lady of Georgetown” by Mya Stoessel was selected by the Georgetown Arts and Culture Board for the utility box at the corner of 7th Street and Austin Avenue.  “Colorful Georgetown” – a collaborative piece by Makenna Baylor, Cassidy Salyer, and Beti Wain – was selected for the utility box at the corner of 2nd Street and Austin Avenue.

Several pieces of student artwork were submitted for consideration to the Arts and Culture Board by Eastview High School art instructor, Jessica Sobhani, during an open call for artwork submissions for public art in Georgetown.  The art students selected and the EVHS Art Department recognize the value of public art to the community and the City of Georgetown, and the Georgetown Arts and Culture Board are honored to add “Lady of Georgetown” and “Colorful Georgetown” to the City public art collection.

Artists are encouraged to submit their artwork during open calls throughout each year.  For the latest news on open calls, please subscribe to the Arts and Culture newsletter by submitting your information on the arts.georgetown.org home page.

On March 25th, the City of Georgetown celebrated the grand opening of two City buildings that are part of a civic campus for City government offices. Known as City Center, the new civic campus includes City Hall and Council and Court buildings as well as the existing Georgetown Public Library that opened in 2007, the Historic Light and Water Works office building, and a public parking lot on Eighth Street.

The great news for Arts and Culture in Georgetown is that the new City Center has integrated pieces of public art into the architectural design of the spaces!

The Municipal Court features a mosaic tile mural titled El Árbol (The Tree) by J. Muzacz. The El Árbol mosaic mural was inspired by a well-known vista from the Jim Hogg Campground at Lake Georgetown.The 50,000 unique glass pieces represent the diversity of Georgetown and were sourced from suppliers all over the country – of Italian, Chinese and Mexican origin. The tiles were then hand-placed over a three-month period and installed using trade techniques. The wall above the transaction window of the Municipal Court exhibits a printed reproduction of original acrylic paintings by artist, Kevin Greer, and titled DayScape Wonder.

The City Hall rotunda features a mural by Mike McConnell and was created using vector graphics and printed on vinyl. The artwork, Bluhole Park, was inspired by photos taken of the San Gabriel River. The curved gallery wall of the lobby will exhibit quarterly rotating artwork by local artists and students. The inaugural exhibition features work by beloved Georgetown artist, Carol Light. Seven framed 12×12 paper collages complete the impressive installation of her work. If you are a local artist and would like to be considered for nomination to this invitational program, please send a digital portfolio and resume to info@arts.georgetown.org.

After a great collaboration between the City’s Geographic Information System (GIS) and Arts and Culture departments, we are pleased to present an interactive map of this year’s Sculpture Tour.

Navigate the pieces by clicking the images at the bottom of the map or by clicking the numbers on the map itself.

To view the Sculpture Tour Map, please click here.