The Birth of TexasWAX

Back in the fall, I received an email from Gwen Plunkett, an artist from Houston who uses encaustic. She invited me to join her newly formed encaustic group in Houston. She said that they were considering becoming a chapter of IEA but weren't sure.

I was excited about the prospect of a Texas-based encaustic group. I had intended to start one but just hadn't gotten my act together enough to do it. Gwen's email finally got me going. We decided to create one Texas group with separate groups in the larger cities, starting with Dallas and Houston.

Gwen mentioned that she's going to be in Dallas for the annual CAA conference and perhaps we could get together. There are some encaustic-related things going on in conjunction with the event. We decided that we would try to find a place to have a group encaustic show in the vicinity of the conference.

So I emailed all of the artists who had taken my workshops over the years and invited them to help form our encaustic group.

We met this past Saturday at the home and studio of Janet Reynolds. There were nine of us: Deanna Wood, Pedrameh Manoochehri, Darlyne Hartman, Kathy Lovas, Susan Sponsler Carstarphen, Silvia Thornton, Janet Reynolds, Junanne Peck, and Trayc Claybrook.

There are several others who are part of the group but weren't able to make the meeting:
Vidya Kagal, Charlotte Cornett, Cheryl McClure, Robin Walker, and Fran Strebel.

We came up with the name - TexasWAX/Dallas - talked about the focus of the group, affiliations, etc. We're currently looking for exhibition space for a joint Dallas/Houston show during CAA.

I'm very excited about the group - it's a diverse, talented, supportive and encouraging group of artists.

You can keep up with our progress on our blogs:
TexasWAX/Dallas
TexasWAX/Houston

We're looking for artists who use encaustic in San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, etc...