Organized by the same folks at Big Medium who’ve made the East Austin Studio Tour one of the most popular arts events in town, the West Austin Studio Tour kicks off Friday with a party at the People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall.

Like EAST, the free, self-guided West Austin tour champions the eclectic abundance of Austin’s artistic talent, offering visitors the chance to take a peek in artists’ working studios to learn about their techniques, tools and inspiration.
If EAST is in a fairly circumscribed area, WEST sprawls out to include a vast swath of Austin west of Interstate 35 and east of MoPac and north and south of the Lady Bird Lake.
There are a whopping 162 designated destinations that are officially part of WEST. And while many destinations on the tour are individual artist’s studios, some are established galleries, some are temporary pop-up galleries and still others are special events.
West Austin Studio Tour
Kickoff party: 6 to 8 p.m. today at the People’s Gallery at Austin City Hall, 201 W. Second St.
Tour: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Tour headquarters: 241 W. Third St.
Cost: Party and tour are free
Information: Catalogs available at Austin Public Library branch locations and tour headquarters.
Downloadable maps and a guide at www.westaustinstudiotour.com

Image: “#195 from “The Wheel Series,’” oil on panel, 2012. Stella Alesi. No. 50 on the WEST map, artists Stella and Leon Alesi will be showing work at their Blackbox Gallery, a residential gallery in South Austin.

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/seeingthings/entries/2012/05/16/west_first_west_austin_studio.html

Pilgrimage Sites in India 1988-1990
Photographs by Rick Dingus

On view through the first week of June, 2012—M-F, 8-5, West Gallery

Reception on May 17 from 5:00-6:30 pm (come and go)
At 5:30 pm TTU’s Dr. Sankar Chatterjee will discuss Indian spirituality

© Rick Dingus

After photographing petroglyph and pictograph sites throughout the American Southwest, TTU Art Professor Rick Dingus became interested in the parallels between Native American and East Indian beliefs., practices, myths, and rituals. He received a grant from Art Matters, Inc., in New York, NY, which he used to travel to India. While there, he visited and photographed Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain caves, temples, and shrines. Ten prints from this project will be in the International Cultural Center’s West Gallery through May, 2012.

Dingus has participated in over 24 solo shows and over 100 group exhibitions since 1977. Dingus’ photographs have been collected by over fifty public collections including Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, TX, Getty Museum, Malibu, CA (Sam Wagstaff Collection), Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, NY, Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and various international museums. A recipient of numerous grants and purchase awards, Dingus most recently served as co-investigator with Robin Germany to create a “Millennial Collection” at The Southwest Collection with the aid of a Research Enhancement Funds grant at Texas Tech University, 1999-2000. More than 100 works have been published or reviewed in books, catalogues, and periodicals. Dingus is author of The Photographic Artifacts of Timothy O’Sullivan, UNM Press, 1982.

Mandalas
Paintings by Stella Alesi
East Gallery

© Stella Alesi                                                                                        © Stella Alesi

The word “mandala” is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean “circle,” a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself – a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds (from The Mandala Project).

An Indian Odyssey
Photographs by Naveen Rajendrapandian
Center Gallery

© Naveen Rajendrapandian                           © Naveen Rajendrapandian                           © Naveen Rajendrapandia

The exhibit will coincide with an exhibit of photographs by Rick Dingus titled, “Pilgrimage Sites in India 1988-1990″
There will be an opening reception on May 17th when Dr. Sankar Chatterjee will speak about Indian spirituality.

All of these paintings are 30×30 inches, oil on panel

You can view the whole episode, (or just my part), here:

http://www.klru.org/artsincontext/

It is an emblem of power, authority and sovereignty whose blast is believed to banish evil spirits,
avert natural disasters, and scare away poisonous creatures.

Among the eight symbols, it stands for the fame of the Buddha’s teaching, which spreads in all
directions like the sound of the conch trumpet.