Most traditional church buildings are based on a Colonial revival style, or the Gothic style. In the late 19th century, urban Protestant congregations built Romanesque churches—rambling, stone structures with large auditoriums to serve densely populated areas that drew their congregations from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic neighborhoods for accessible and participatory worship. The interior style of these churches was influenced by theater design. Excellent acoustics, good sight lines, comfortable seating, large stages and dramatic lighting began to appear.
Category: The Arts
Architecture Tour
This spring will offer a rare opportunity to tour homes and commercial buildings with some of the richest architectural history in Texoma. Sponsored by the Sherman Preservation League and the Denison Service League, the tours will connect with the past and show how the past is moving into the present.
Art Talk
The 2nd Floor Gallery at Grayson County College has been drawing people with a yen for Steve O. Black’s creative and often unorthodox theme shows for the last ten years. Now the gallery has lost its space, temporarily at least, due to ongoing renovation of the GCC campus. Fear not, the shows will go on.
Hitting the Hip Notes
There was ice in the wind outside, but inside it was “Summertime,” as Sherman High’s Bearcat Jazz Band played the 1935 George Gershwin standard from Porgy and Bess. It made no difference that the venue was the Piner Middle School cafeteria; the audience and musicians alike might just as well have been in a tucked-away jazz club at 18th and Vine in Kansas City, the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem or Preservation Hall in the Vieux Carré. It was proof of music beyond Hanna Montana. Jazz lives.
Allison Gillies
Allison Gillies paints large, so large that the usual run of canvases don’t provide enough space for her expansive ideas of color, shape and texture. She tried making her own canvases out of fabric from Wal-Mart, but that didn’t work either. An old tarp in her father’s garage reminded her of a sail, and her quest for something big enough to hold her ideas was over.
Betty Nash
People are taking notice of Betty Nash’s art. Her works, done in oil, are graceful, subtle manipulations of light and shadows, of deep colors and reflections. She uses the chiaroscuro style (the play of light and shadow) embraced by masters such as Rembrandt and Raphael.
Ten Artists
Not so long ago, Denison recognized the undiscovered treasure that was its art community. Accepting the economic efficacy of a thriving arts presence, the community decided to support the arts, back the arts, and promote the arts. Under the leadership of the Denison Arts Council’s Mike Williams and others, the downtown galleries now attract ever increasing numbers of art patrons to the city.
Robert L. Schafer
When Robert Littlefield Schafer started art classes, Babe Ruth was still with the Boston Red Sox. It was 1917, and Schafer was five. “My mother saw my interest and enrolled me in a children’s class at a local college,” the ninety-five-year-old painter recalled. That was the beginning of a lifelong love affair.
Michael Winegarden
For someone who failed fourth grade art because he flunked a sewing project, Michael Winegarden has come a long way. Honors for his accomplishments in art today are numerous. His fourth-grade art teacher might not believe it, but Winegarden now teaches drawing and art appreciation at Grayson County College.
Linda Schaar
Linda Schaar has called many places home, living here, there, and back again. When she moved to Sherman— for the second time— she discovered an artistic bent that she hadn’t recognized before. She explained why. “Sherman and Denison are full of art, so the opportunity is here. I might not have made the step, had I lived in another area.”