John Danielson, told The Rider he is inspired by the act of observation. “I’ve always been really interested in observation and paying attention to my visual environment, noticing things that are interesting to me and frequently those things that are easy to overlook,” Danielson said. “I frequently find them really interesting just for what they are.” Azenett Valdez/THE RIDER PHOTOS
“Ancient Landscapes of South Texas: Hiding in Plain Sight,” an exhibit of the many natural landscapes and artifacts that have left a historic presence in the Rio Grande Valley, is on display at the Charles and Dorothy Clark Art Gallery in Liberal Arts Building South on the Edinburg campus.
The exhibit, presented by the Community Historical Archeology Project with Schools, opened Nov. 1 and continues through Friday.
Roseann Bacha-Garza, CHAPS program director and an anthropology professor, said the exhibit covers world and human geography, Texas, Mexican-American and U.S. history, social studies and humanities.
Bacha-Garza said the museum exhibit is important to UTRGV students and community because there are historical landscapes in the Rio Grande Valley that are unrecognized by many, such as the 27.4 million-year-old Catahoula Volcanic Ash formation in Rio Grande City.
“We want to inspire them to want to learn more,” she said. “We also want to instill a sense of community pride for the students and the citizens of our region to say, ‘Hey, this is a pretty cool area.’”
The project started four years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with the program receiving grant money and conducting research.
Many elements comprise the project as a whole, starting with educational posters that turned into a larger project to work with regional teachers to develop Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, trunks for schools with artifacts and educational devices for schools, documentary film, dedicated website, tourism/map guide, an app to accompany the exhibit and a photobook.
“The first thing we did was we created a projectile point artifact educational poster that works in 3D photogrammetry and augmented reality,” Bacha-Garza said.
Sebastian Gonzalez, a history junior and exhibit docent, said the goal of the CHAPS program is to create a learning base for students of all ages and not just university level.
“Everything in here [are] materials and items that were found here in South Texas,” Gonzalez said. “Going from the mammoth tusks, the mammoth femur … that was something that was found here in the region.”
Some of the artifacts exhibited, such as the atlatl, were created for professors while others were found, such as a mammoth fossil in La Joya that was donated to legacy institution University of Texas-Pan American.
“Sometimes, these materials are hidden in plain sight and it just takes you a little bit of resource to know, ‘this is what I’m looking for and this is what I’m finding,’” Gonzalez said.
Jesmil Maldonado, director of galleries at UTRGV and a professor in the School of Art and Design, said the excitement and curiosity she has seen among students while visiting and touching the artifacts in the “Ancient Landscapes of South Texas” has let people feel like children once again.
In our heads: What we perceive
In completion of his master’s degree, John Danielson presented “Perceptions/Response,” a Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition, which explores the understanding of perception and fully appreciating what is before one’s eye through the oil-paint-and-drawing-on-canvas medium.
The exhibit opened Nov. 3 and continues through Friday in the Rusteberg Art Gallery on the Brownsville campus.
Danielson described his art as occupying a space between abstraction, which relies on abstract qualities, but does not rely on strong representational qualities.
“Everything needs to be obvious, and I think that’s a problem, kind of culturally,” he said. “Like the obvious or the easy to figure out, that doesn’t interest me. The obvious or the easy. It is super hard to work with color at an elevated level. It’s a lifelong challenge. It’s going to keep me coming back.”
Many of the paintings were completed looking at the scene and not relying on a photograph to have a response to his perceptions.
“We can perceive, of course, visually,” Danielson said. “We also perceive emotionally, spiritually, cognitively, and we perceive in ways that there’s no language for.”
The artist said once he is done engaging with a piece, making his art is the viewer’s perception and response as much as it is his own.
“I work with the intention of leaving space in the paintings or drawing for that person to come to a personal conclusion, to make decisions, to find their meaning and to find their own response and not necessarily trying to figure out what [I was] trying … to get them to feel,” he said.
Maldonado said she can see the connection in the pieces.
“How he explains the way that we perceive things, not just visually but also the emotional and psychological connection that we’re able to establish with his work,” Maldonado said.
The gallery director said the viewer will have different interpretations as to what the artist initially intended with technique and colors.
“You can, kind of, also see the emotions that were going through the artist’s mind when he was creating this,” Maldonado said. “So, it’s very interesting to see the way that he applied the medium as well.”
There were challenges from beginning to end, but Danielson said his family was supportive of him through his master’s journey and amid the pandemic.
“My wife and children have been very supportive, and they made it fun to be an art student and an artist,” he said.
Leo Aguilar, a visual communications sophomore (left) and Lestat Alcantara, a philosophy and pre-law junior, examine artifacts at the “Ancient Landscapes of South Texas: Hiding in Plain Sight” exhibit last Tuesday in the Charles and Dorothy Clark Gallery on the Edinburg campus. Aura Velasquez/THE RIDER
