By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
In this roundup of the latest in arts news, check out a new concept in art exhibitions, travel back to Vietnam at the height of the war, and see how a new partnership will bring more art downtown.
View from the Edge of the War Zone: Vietnam 1967-1968
A collection of photos shot by Amarillo philanthropist Mary Emeny will offer insight into the lives of everyday Vietnamese people living in a war-torn country.
View from the Edge of the War Zone: Vietnam 1967-1968 will be on view beginning Aug. 21 in the Southern Light Gallery on the first floor of the Ware Student Commons on the Washington Street campus of Amarillo College. The exhibition, which also will include excerpts from a journal she kept during that time, will be on view through Sept. 28.
"The Vietnamese people were caught in the middle, just trying to survive," Emeny said in a news release. "The war was the peoples' enemy, not one side or the other."
Emeny spent portions of that year in Vietnam, working in orphanages in Da Nang and Hue with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker service organization. She also worked for the Red Cross following the Tet Offensive. In Amarillo, Emeny has worked extensively with Don Harrington Discovery Center, Wildcat Bluff Nature Center, Amarillo Habitat for Humanity and more.
The exhibition is one of a number of events at Amarillo College that will tie in to the airing of The Vietnam War on Panhandle PBS. The new Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary will debut Sept. 17, and Emeny will be featured on an upcoming episode of Live Here.
Emeny will speak Sept. 21 in a special presentation held on the International Day of Peace. Also, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a collection of interconnected short stories about a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam, is Amarillo College's Common Reader for the year.
Gallery hours are 7:30 a.m. to 8:50 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 4:50 p.m. Fridays and 2 to 5:50 p.m. Sundays.
Call 806-345-5654.
Anti-Social
Artist Rachael Edwards will attempt to bridge formality and freedom in a new art experience Friday.
Anti-Social will mix the experiences of street art and fine art galleries in an event Edwards dubs "back alley gallery."
"Following the spirit of street art, the audience is invited to 'find' the show, done in spray paint on cardboard, hanging with the lighting and care of a fine art gallery setting in an alleyway in downtown Amarillo in the outdoor, raw elements of the street art world," Edwards said in a news release.
The exhibition will be on view from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Friday and will be installed between First and Fourth avenues east of Harrison Street in downtown Amarillo.
"Part of my own art has been a practice of mixing different things together, to amplify the best parts of different things —different styles, different mediums — so what I have done here is the same thing, but with different ways of seeing the art, different ways of presentation," Edwards said.
Pieces in the exhibition will comment on "the way we act and treat each other on social media," she said.
For information, visit Edwards' website or her Facebook page.
Lonesome Dove
A photo display looking back on a classic Western miniseries officially will inaugurate a new art space in downtown Amarillo.
Lonesome Dove will feature photographs by Bill Wittliff from the set of the miniseries based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Larry McMurtry, as well as artifacts from the PPHM collection that relate to the actual events on which the novel was based. The exhibition is part of a traveling exhibition created by the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos.
It will hang Sept. 4 to Dec. 3 inside the Historic Federal Building, 620 S. Tyler St. in downtown Amarillo.
A sneak-preview exhibition, Cattle, Cowboys & Culture: Kansas City and Amarillo, Building an Urban West, is on view through Aug. 26.
PPHM and ANB teamed to offer "a unique look at the founding of our city and our bank," said William Ware, ANB executive vice-president, in a news release.
"The timing is perfect since we are celebrating our 125th year in business and showcasing the revitalization of downtown Amarillo," Ware said.
The series of planned exhibitions will focus on the growth of downtown Amarillo, including an exhibition on the history of baseball in Amarillo to coincide with the opening of the downtown ballpark.
The exhibitions will "bring visitors into the Historic Federal Building, which is a work of art from a bygone era, and they can see artifacts from the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum," said PPHM executive director Carol Lovelady in the release.
The building was constructed from 1914 to 1916 to house the U.S. Post Office and the federal court. It was purchased by ANB in 2013.
Exhibitions can be viewed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Admission is free.
For information, call 806-651-2244.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
