Art and antiques mix at Theta charity show
Like many nonprofits and longtime events, the Theta Charity Antiques Show is in transition.
Julie Harris, the chair of this year’s annual event, Friday through Sunday at the Bayou City Event Center, said the organization has grown since its first show 64 years ago.
Today, its ticket sales could bring in $300,000 for local charities, including Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Child Advocates, Texas Children’s Cancer Center, Bo’s Place and Undies for Everyone.
Still, Harris and her team want the event to appeal to a broader audience interested in much more than antiques.
So this year’s Theta show adds special events for one of the hottest topics in collecting and home design: art.
After last year’s success with its Designer Walks, in which local interior designers talked to groups about using antiques in home design, they decided to do the same thing with art.
Of the show’s 50 dealers, 11 are art dealers and another 13 list art as a specialty among their other wares, Harris said. The artwork will range from antique to modern.
“We saw that the art was a great area that we could expand upon to broaden our base to appeal to a lot more people,” said Waverly Gage, chair of the Art Walks component. “It’s educational, and it engages people with the show. That’s exciting.”
The new Art Walks, led on Friday by Bradley Brooks, curator of the Bayou Bend Collection, and on Saturday by Lea Weingarten of the Weingarten Art Group, will take groups of 15 people around to talk about a handful of art items at the show and how they fit into a collection or home.
You have to register for the Art Walks in advance, for $25 on top of general admission.
Brooks, a specialist in historical house museums, joined Bayou Bend in 2014 after working at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Earlier experience in Texas came as director of the McFaddin-Ward House in Beaumont and at the Moody Mansion in Galveston.
Weingarten has worked in Houston’s public and private art communities for more than 15 years. She has served boards of major arts organizations and is vice chair of the Menil Society Steering Committee for the Menil Collection and on the Civic Arts Committee for the Houston Arts Alliance.
Brooks hopes to be able to share why he finds a piece compelling and help others learn to evaluate what they see.
“Ideally, the more ways someone can be moved by or inspired by a work of art, the more valuable and useful it will be in their life and their environment,” he said. “I like to have the largest number of connections possible with a work or object. Intellectually, on an aesthetic level, that it’s designed beautifully and an example of excellent craftsmanship.”
First, though, Brooks thinks people should start with one fundamental element: “There’s no point in buying art if you don’t like it.”
In addition to knowing what you like and not caring that the person next to you might not agree, he encourages people to mix it up a bit when choosing art. It can be “very stimulating and very exciting,” he said, to place wildly different art in the same room.
Weingarten’s task, in addition to leading two Art Walks, was to help find a contemporary gallery to join the exhibitor list. She recruited Jonathan Ferrara Gallery from New Orleans, who’ll bring work by a handful of artists.
“Art very much reflects the times,” Weingarten said. “When you’re looking to add art to your collection in your home, that narrative can be important.”
Weingarten will talk to people about editing their choices, budget, goals and balancing art decisions with interior design decisions.
The expansion of art offerings with a wider range of styles and artists, including emerging artists, is a nice update for the Theta show, she said.
Mixing the new and old, in an exhibit or in a home, is a good thing, both Brooks and Weingarten said, noting that it’s easier than you think to mix contemporary art and objects with antiques.
Weingarten said she’s seen old homes and buildings such as Italian villas or even the Palace of Versailles in France with contemporary installations.
“The contrast can be so elegant,” she said. “I love combining those two types of looks. That’s when you really stop and watch.”