OJAC to open new exhibits this weekend
By Lynsi Musselman
The Old Jail Art Center announces two new exhibitions set to open on Saturday, Sept. 12 and run through Jan. 30, 2021.
OJAC executive director Patrick Kelly said the new exhibits will appeal to the interests of a broad audience.
“Basil Clemons’ photographs give historical insight into life in West Texas some 100 years ago,” Kelly explained. “Houston artist Charis Ammon’s paintings are thoughtful and represent much more than just a record of what we encounter in urban areas.”
Basil Clemons Exhibit
At the age of 16, Basil Clemons left Texas headed to California.
“His restless nature led him to San Francisco, Hollywood, Alaska, and Seattle pursing careers in the U.S. Army, Tom Mix’s Wild West Show, photography, and a traveling circus,” Kelly said.
In 1919, while back in Texas with the circus, he learned that his Seattle photography studio had burned.
Clemons decided to settle in Breckenridge to photograph the flurry of activity surrounding the discovery of oil.
Kelly said that for three decades, Clemons tirelessly and passionately photographed most everything – the oil fields, the growing town, and leisure life, as well as cultural and entertainment events.
“Selected from over 4,900 photographs from the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, the images epitomize life in and around Breckenridge – an American boomtown in the 1920s and 30s,” Kelly said.
Major support for Basil Clemons: Witness to a West Texas Boomtown is provided by First National Bank Albany/Breckenridge, with additional funding from Susan B. and John R. Cook, Helen K. Groves, Jon Rex Jones, Susan and Darrell Shortes, and Winifred Yates Waller.
Charis Ammon Works
“Charis Ammon recognizes that she inherited a paved world,” Kelly explained. “In her acceptance of this world, coupled with recently living in New York and prior to that Houston, she strives to discern beauty in this ‘concrete quilt’ of a constructed environment.”
Kelly added that based on her observations, Ammon’s intimate paintings serve as more than just documentaries of cracked or upheaved concrete, piles of debris, and records of never-ending repair.
For Ammon, these observations and resulting works serve as metaphorical parallels to human psychological and physical behavior.
“Much like the physical world, we construct our own realties that are fallible and destined for damage or breakage, sometimes by no fault of our own,” Kelly said. “We too, are constantly in a state of repair.”
For the Cell Series, Ammon will present her paintings along with new quilted works.
“Though a very different approach to image making, the connection should be obvious,” Kelly added.
The 2020 Cell Series is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and McGinnis Family Fund of Communities Foundation of Texas, with additional funding from Susie and Joe Clack, Jenny and Rob Dupree, Jon Rex Jones, Amy and Patrick Kelly, and Kathy Webster in memory of Charles H. Webster.
The general public can view the exhibits free of charge during museum hours of 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Masks are required and available.
