This article was originally published in The Examiner on Oct. 20, 2016.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
The Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur held a free wildlife extravaganza and children’s art show on Saturday, Oct. 8. This family fun day was held to celebrate a new wildlife art exhibit featuring pieces from Houston artist Vickie McMillan and Port Arthur artist Albert Faggard.
The museum invited local children throughout Southeast Texas to submit
artwork over the last several weeks, according to Education and Tour coordinator Stephanie Harren. The contest theme was wild animals, and this was the second annual children’s art competition. Over 60 entries were submitted in four categories: age 6 and under, 7 to 12, 12 to 14, and 15 and above.
Harren oversaw the arts and crafts for the event, bringing in visiting Houston illustrator Bill Megenhardt, who has been published in several children’s books.
Texas Snakes and More was also at the extravaganza, bringing both venomous and non-venomous snakes.
Harris said, “People got to hold and touch the snakes — the non-venomous ones, obviously.”
Vickie McMillan gave a gallery talk at 2:30 after the family event, detailing her trips to Africa to research and study wildlife for her work. McMillan, a Woodlands resident, recently completed two 65-foot murals for the new Texas Children’s Hospital there.
McMillan explained that she lives with essential tremors (ET), which causes her hands and also vocal cords to tremble.
“Whenever I am active, my tremors are active,” she explained at the beginning of her talk. She said people often ask her “how can you paint when you’re shaking like that.” She answers, “It’s a lot of concentration and I have to hold my breath when I make very fine strokes and I hold my hand like this.
“Over the years, I’ve actually developed a style, a technique that accommodates my ET, my essential tremors. Instead of abandoning my art, I embrace that disability and it creates a style, I believe, and a feeling that is more conducive for my tremors.”
McMillan explained in her talk that ET plays a role in texture and loose, impressionistic focus around the subjects of her pieces. “You’re taken to the exact place that the artist wants you to focus on, and so you put those fine details at the very end, so they [the
tremors] work to my benefit.” She uses a medium blending three parts joint compound with one part Gorilla Glue, and a spatula for texture.
Her pieces, along with Faggard’s, will be exhibited at the Museum of the
Gulf Coast through Jan. 14. Faggard was born in Beaumont and is currently an art instructor at Lamar State College Port Arthur.
New director of the museum Tom Neil started Oct 10. Neal, who spent nearly 40 years working for Lamar State College-Port Arthur before retiring in 2015, has been a member of the board of the Port Arthur Historical Society for the past several years.
Eleanor Skelton 