Art for everyone

For the third consecutive semester, UTRGV’s department of Fine Arts will offer the Rio Grande Valley community a series of concerts and art exhibits on the Brownsville and Edinburg campuses.

Last Tuesday, the Gallery at Rusteberg Hall in Brownsville hosted the art exhibit, “Messenger,” by University of Texas Pan American graduate Travis Trapp. The show continues through Feb.17.

“I look at art every day,” Trapp said. “I get my inspiration from everything.”

The show consists of more than 20 pieces of colorful and abstract designs.

“I take something through multiple processes and see what happens without knowing how will that turn out,” he said. “I’m just trying to create work.”

Another exhibit opened in the Visual Arts Gallery on the Edinburg campus last Thursday.

The gallery kicked off the semester with “In Memory of Artist Diana Womble.”

Womble was a student in the process of obtaining her master’s degree in Fine Arts in UTRGV, according to UTRGV.edu. Womble died on Dec. 14.

Gallery Coordinator Alejandro Macias said that people looking for a bit more artistic culture should attend these shows.

“There is a lot going on,” Macias said. “Not only just for the general population but for the students who want to develop their skills or see what other people are doing. It’s crucial for their development.”

The next opening reception in the Visual Arts Gallery at the Edinburg campus will be held Wednesday and will feature the work of Associate Professor Donald Lyles. On Feb. 21, a faculty group show will open at the gallery in Brownsville.

UTRGV’s Patron of the Arts program will offer a variety of musical performances, such as mariachi, piano, ensembles and cello throughout the semester.

“The calendar for the whole Patron series is full of interesting people,” said Katherine Decker, a cellist and assistant professor at UTRGV.

Decker has been playing the cello since she was 3. Her mother, a music teacher, introduced her to the world of music.

“All of the music is really about life, hate and despair,” Decker said. “I really identify a lot with that. I think a lot of people do.”

She will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Texas Southmost College Arts Center in Brownsville. The concert will consist of three “really beautiful” pieces: “Vocalise,” Op. 34, No. 14, by Sergei Rachamaninoff; Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 119, by Serge Prokofiev; and Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, Op. 40, by Dmitri Shostakovich.

“Students shouldn’t be bored by classical music and cello,” Decker said. “It’s so much more than that and so are the rest of the events. Music speaks to us all.”

Last Thursday, Donald Pinson, a Del Mar College assistant professor of trombone and low brass, performed a trombone concert in the Texas Southmost College Arts Center.

“It’s always fun to visit other places,” Pinson said by telephone Jan. 23 from Corpus Christi.

Pinson grew up in San Antonio, where in the fourth grade he learned to play the piano.

“Neither of my parents are musicians, but, they played music since the youngest age I can remember,” he said. “There’s a lot of fun music.”