1.26.23 | Fall & Winter Highlights

Congratulations to J.R. Roykovich on their exhibition Travel in Light Years on display in the GAR Gallery August 27th – November 12th, 2022.

Part of the exhibition included public programming – an evening of Galveston Ghost stories.

Thank you to everyone who came out to share a spooky story around the fire! Here is GP retelling the terrifying tale of the haunted research ship!

On October 20th GAR was happy to host the Ascend Art Market in our front courtyard.

It was a fun night, with music and food! Here is Raudiver (Galveston, TX) playing an experimental set in the back courtyard.

The Galveston festival season kicked off with Oktoberfest. Pictured here is a giant stine, Glasstire writer William Sarradet, and GAR’s new artists in residence, Lili Chin and Samira Yamin. Proust!

We survived yet another Lone Star Biker Rally. Pictured here: possibly the prettiest bike at Biker Rally…?

Rounding off the winter festivities with Dickens on the Strand, here is artist in residence, Lili Chin, posing with the AMAZING Edgar Allen Poe who’s performances are not to be missed!

A big thank you to Eric Heist and Benjamin Tischer for coming to Galveston in November to introduce our current exhibition, Candy Factory by Eric Heist and BREYER P-ORRIDGE.

Install shot of Candy Factory on a lovely winter day.

Programming for the exhibition included performances by Future Blondes (Houston, TX). Pictured here is Domokos during the first, ambient set.

Thank you to Future Blondes for a great night!

And now! It’s time for…. CREATURE FEATURE!

Valentine’s Day preview with these Sweet Creatures, our resident GAR kitties, The Ghost and The Darkness.

Not to be outshone, Our third resident kitty, Pumaman: Cat of Legend.

If you walk the winter beach, you may find a fossil crab! A good authority tells us it’s at least several million years old.

Last, but not least, on January 22nd, 2023, we were lucky enough to have Karima Walker (Tucson, AZ) and Little Mazarn (Austin, TX) perform in our back courtyard.

It was a beautiful, magical night of music.

8.31.22 | Cuckoo in the Courtyard

This past years artists in residence — Manuel Rodríguez, Jean Shon and Andrew Wilson — finished off the year strong with an amazing exhibition in the GAR gallery. We sure are going to miss these three!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the artist talks. It was an awesome night!

A much needed DTO happy hour!

Late Night Jenga Fun.

The whole GAR gang at the beach house!

Manny barbecuing in Middle Earth?

Gratuitous Galveston beach sunrise.

What’s going on in the GARden? Early summer we had oodles and doodles of little tomatoes.

Banana flower with bananas.

Only flowering by moonlight, this dragonfruit flower…

And dragonfruit!

Now at the end of August we’ve got tons of delicious muscadine grapes. All you can eat!

Creature Feature starts with the cat creatures! Here’s The Ghost looking sweet.

Pumaman, looking philosophical. No good photos of The Darkness this time. We’ll make sure to have some next time!

Rescued this sweet little eel on the beach.

And finally! This very observant young cuckoo in the courtyard!

That does it! We’re done with summer, bring on the fall!

4.28.22 | SpringSprungSprang

The boat planter in full bloom.

The bounty from the GARden has made for some gorgeous lunches.

Thank you to GAR Year 2 alum Zahar Vaks for putting together a great group show for the gallery! 3 going through 9 to get to 27 will be on view until Saturday May 7th!

Even though the weather threw us a curve ball, this was still such a special night with performances by Post-Trance Tea Ceremony (Houston, TX) and W. CREEVES (Marfa, TX).

Just your friendly neighborhood Gas Friend.

Residency Shenanigans: All The Dogs.

And a very serious game of pool at Market Street Station.

Andrew, lining up the shot!

Andrew Graham from Swarming Branch made our April Artwalk a night to remember! Thank you, Andrew!

Ending the night with a Happy Birthday fire for past resident, Katrina Moorehead.

Kicking off our Creature Feature with this Mermaid’s Purse. They wash up on shore quite a bit in early spring. They are actually the egg sacks from sharks and rays.

Well hello handsome.

Aren’t you a tall drink of water?

Cool hair, bro.

A Summer Tanager waiting patiently by the bee hive. Tanager’s love to eat bees!

Spotted these prehistoric beauties at High Island. Roughly 6 feet long.

Thanks for visiting GAR, Veronica Roberts, and joining us for a fun day of birding at High Island!

The stop at Stingaree’s on the way back to Galveston was well worth it!

MSA, is that you??

The GAR cats, being cute. Aw!

Aww!

Awww!!

Awwwwwwww!!!!!!!

Thank you to everyone who came out to help make our spring so special! We can’t wait to see you this summer!

1.19.22 | If there’s one thing I always have, it’s a creature (Fall/Winter ketchup blog).

After a noticeable absence, and due to customer demand, the GARblog returns with a beach-found baby Ankylosaurus.

Pumaman relaxing.

Manny manning the grill.

Oktoberfest in Galveston. Prost!

Thanks to Jabari, we’ve been getting some serious games of chess in.

Shoutout to Dawolu Jabari’s show Lessons from Above: Constellation Quilts.

Kitty love.

Big Hairy Spider.

Andrew admiring the patches at the Biker Rally.

If you turn 30, Jean will make you a Punch Cake.

First you punch it. Then you eat it!

Take a short drive to Brazos Bend and hitch a ride on an alligator.

Susie calls the Desert Oracle from the ghost phone.

Sweet potato crop was very bountiful.

Now that we are back on our blog game, we’ll try to update every season.

Catching Up

Its been a really busy fall/winter, but we wanted to give a shout out to some of the people who have helped make this season special.  First up is Kelly Sears who curated “Unsteady Ground”. Featured is Christina Battle’s video installation “The people in this picture are standing on all that remained of a handsome residence”.

Thank you to Loop38 for bringing together two works, “Infinite Nero” by Salvatore Sciarrino and “The Coronor’s Report” by Simon Holt in their program, Murder Mystery Madness. It was an incredible and inspired performance!

Thank you to Eric Taylor and Susan Lindfors Taylor for an epic night of music and storytelling.

Thank you to Gregory Amenoff for sharing these beautiful paintings with us, and for hanging out with us in Galveston.

Oh! And by the way, its been cold as all get out this past winter! Thank you, global warming, for your freaky weather patterns!

Thank you to Joshua Edwards for coming to read us poetry, and beating us all in chess!

And as we look forward to spring, here is a little bee hive update for you all! We did our first spring inspection of the bee hive! We found they filled the feeder box up with honey, so we removed it, and continued checking on the rest of the hive.

In the first box we found it packed full of free-form comb! We weren’t very strict with our bees and getting them to build nice, straight comb, but they seem super happy doing it their way.

The next box was full of older comb, so the color had gotten really dark.

Taste testing our first bit of GAR honey! It was SO GOOD!

Hopefully next time you come visit we’ll be able to share some honey with you!

6.17.17 | Pumaman

Come by and see the 2016-2017 Artists in Residence show featuring work by Leonardo Benzant, Fidencio Fifield-Perez, and Pat Palermo. It’s full of mysteries!

A big thank you to Emperor X for coming to Galveston and playing an amazing show for our opening.

We headed West with the residents for our annual after-show road trip. Here are Pat, Dan and Lucy in a Judd concrete box.

The Judd’s were infested with adorable baby bunny rabbits. Donald would have loved it.

The whole gang on a morning hike in the Davis Mountains.

Rainbow over Mountain GAR.

A quick bee update: This photo is from several weeks ago now, but our bees have settled in and are busy building comb, hatching brood, gathering pollen, and building up their honey stores.

And introducing the newest, unexpected member of the GARgang: Pumaman! (Pronounced Puma Man). Named in honor of GAR cofounder, Bert Geary, and his dedicated work with the mountain lions of West Texas.

We had been hearing the sound of a kitty in distress but couldn’t find the source for a few days. Finally we located this little one hiding in the engine of a resident’s car.

We put out food and water for him, but he wouldn’t come out.  Finally we ended up spraying water into the hood of the car, and he came running out!

He was exhausted from lack of food and water, in the heat of the Galveston summer.

But after a few days of rest, and regular nourishment he was up and about, finding and causing all sorts of mischief!

Now he’s a friendly and playful little guy, attacking everything that moves, then crashing hard for a nap on a lap. We haven’t introduced him to The Ghost and The Darkness yet, but I’m sure he’ll be a welcome addition to the GARdians!

05.04.17 | The Birds and The Bees

Curator, Regine Basha and her son, Ruben, visited Galveston this spring and we went to go visit the Roseate Spoonbills nesting on High Island.

It’s a sight to see! 

When you add in the alligators it becomes a primal nature wonderland!

Here is a migrating Indigo Bunting resting in the GAR courtyard. The spring migration seems to have come a little late this year, but there have been plenty of beautiful birds passing through.

New additions to the residency! Introducing the GAR bees!

Here is Eric, releasing the Queen (Beeyonce).

Many thanks to Anna Garza for coming to Galveston and talking about her projects empowering girls and building safe spaces for sexual minorities in Houston through the wisdom and power of Rock n’ Roll! This was a collaboration between GAR, WAKE the zine, and the Galveston Party.

Afterwards, Giant Kitty played a super fun set. Thanks so much for coming down, guys! This was such a rad show!

Last week we were honored to host a Da Camera Pop-Up Concert, Blow Up, My City, featuring Sonia Wieder Atherton on cello, Sarah Rothenberg on piano, and short films by Chantal Akerman.

Sonia Wieder Atherton accompanying Chantal Akerman’s Saute ma ville (Blow up, My City), which she filmed in 1968 when she was 18. It was her first film.

Sonia and Sarah playing Grand Duet for cello and piano (1959) by Galina Ustvolskaya. They brought the house down.

The following night Karima Walker treated us to a haunting, spectral desert meandering. Special shout out to Michael Allison, who not only opened for Karima, but did all our sound and projections for the show as well. Thanks, Michael!

Last, but certainly not least, a gratuitous spring garden bounty photo. This went into our bellies. The traditional GAR lunch is alive and well.

Thanks to everyone who has come out to all our music events this past spring. Looking forward to summer!

2.25.17 | The Festival of The Beautiful

This year for Mardi Gras we joined forces with the Galveston Arts Center and the Hotel Artist Lofts to present “The Festival of The Beautiful”.  No fences, totally free, sponsored by no one and everyone.

Costumes and handmade gifts replaced store bought jester hats and plastic beads.  Eric’s wizard costume came complete with a driftwood staff, barnacle incense holder, and beach flotsam necklaces to give to strangers and friends.

We left the GAR compound and joined up with the Hotel Artist Lofts.  Becky Major was playing the Euphonium!

Dennis Nance, Galveston Arts Center curator, looked amazing in his handmade costume and streamers. GAR resident, Fidencio Martinez, was spectacularly turned out as a potted monstera philodendron, and carried our Ark for the fire.

Sallie and GAR resident Pat Palermo carried the official parade banner.

We paraded downtown, gathering revelers as we went.  We quickly outgrew the sidewalk, walked the wrong way up a one-way street, and took over an official parade route for a few blocks, returning to the GAR compound for the rest of the Festival.

We had a ritualistic burning of our Festival Ark. Each group brought their own offering for the fire. In the fire our ashes all became one.

Studded Left from Houston kicked off the show!

And Vockah Redu from New Orleans brought it all home! And a very special thank you goes to Michael Stuart Allison for the projections and sound. A second very special thank you to Dan Schmahl, who took all our photos, and therefore appears in none, or all, symbolically, depending on how you look at it.

Thanks to everyone who came out, made costumes and gifts, and brought the festive spirit. It was a truly special night. Hope to see y’all next Mardi Gras!

9.17.16 |The Eye and The Oracle

David Snyder explains his installation, “Knock-Off Oracle, Undecider’s Anthem… And a Disaster, After” at his opening in the GAR Gallery.

Josh, listening to the oracle.

In conjunction with the gallery opening we had a mini-music festival featuring 3 bands – Karima Walker, Deep Cuts, and Hearts of Animals.  This is Karima Walker’s atmospheric and haunting performance .

Thanks to Michael Allison for his awesome projections! Looked just as good from the inside as it did from the courtyard.  This was during Deep Cuts’ performance.

The three new residents have arrived and have begun exploring the strangeness of Galveston.

Ghost, the GAR kitty – hard at work.

Sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico.

8 .4 .16 | Big Bubbles and Bernie on the Beach

We sent off our 2015 – 2016 Residents in style – geeking out on giant bubbles!

I mean, how can you NOT smile with bubbles this big? It brought out everyone’s inner kid.

And snow cones!!

Dan puts the finishing touches on a “Bernie on the Beach”.

Special shout out to Michael Waugh for planting ground cherries all over GAR. These funny little fruits shouldn’t have been able to grow in this climate, but they did incredibly well.

Ghost and the Darkness having an early morning conspiratorial meeting. Caught in the act, boys!

Sun rising over the Gulf of Mexico. Happy Summer, everyone!