Julene Franki Solo Artist Exhibition: The Missions of San Antonio in History, en Plein Air and in Super Impasto

The scope of this Individual Artists Grant, which was made  possible with the support of the City of San Antonio\’s Department of Arts & Culture,  was  a tableaux of San Antonio historical areas and it centers on the Mission Trail: all of the Missions, including the Alamo and  the River Walk.  This magical realism depiction  of a dream  landscape from the oldest  map of the area, plein air painting of  native, original vegetation and   includes Native Americans, artists of all kinds,  and other elements  especially important to me and to the history of San Antonio.   Each of the four paintings has anachronistic elements including the depictions of the missions and the native people and others living and working but not   necessarily in an accurate time correlation.

I have a history degree from the University of Texas at Austin and  in my research for the painting I became enthralled with the real first depiction of the Missions by a San Antonian in the 1764 Map by Presidio commander Capitan Don Luis Antonio Menchaca.  Brown\’s Carter Library gave me permission to reproduce the map as part of the exhibit.

The representation of each mission are is largely based on the inaccurate, fairly primitive and yet charming depictions on this Map, which I consider one of the first pieces of San Antonio art. These representations depict the missions larger than life as a  metaphor of their importance to the Spanish venture and in their cultural impact on San Antonio and Texas culture.  Also depicted are the Asequias of each mission and the San Antonio River as constants and critical to the missions’ existence.   I depict some of them with idealistic, yet historically accurate style, including the original frescos on the San Jose and Concepcion missions.   I even recreated the 3-D domes of these two missions using only the acrylic paint, medium and varnish I use in all of my art. Little Espada is depicted as it is today although the  people in the painting are from the time of the Map. San Juan is depicted in an idealistic pure white  in the background between the two ideas.

A key feature is the painting, in seasonal progress,  the landscapes  with as much accuracy as to local vegetation as I could find from Mission Park Rangers and, especially,   Alamo Area Texas Master Naturalists who directed me to Confluence Park where original vegetation is beautifully restored.. Ninety percent of these flowers, trees and vegetation were painted in season and on local sites, despite the severe drought in the San Antonio area while I was painting.  A naturalist docent at the Witte showed me the magnificent giant  Salinas bluebonnet painting there as a representation of how the bluebonnets and landscape probably were during Spanish times.  I had to go to Austin to paint a large spread of bluebonnets for the  painting of San Jose.  The fabulous fields of Indian blankets actually covered the fields at San Juan as depicted in that painting and which I painted on site.  The blossoms on fruit trees, brought by the Spanish to Texas,  on the painting of Concepcion were mostly painted at San Juan asequia area in early spring because the farms at Concepcion no longer exist. Native Americans as they were dressed in the Spanish Missions are part of this segment.  Opposite the Spanish introduced fruit trees I I painted trees and grasses from Confluence Park in February to show how the land was before the Spanish Mission venture, including Native Americans in original clothing.

The Alamo painting is a Fall painting and the foliage was painted en plein air at  Confluence Park including native oaks and bald cypress which are depicted on the Map.  The Great Loop and the position of the Alamo are taken from the Mencheca map and appear simplistic and are, in fact, not accurate positioning’s.  But, they are accurate within the world of the map.

I intended to add more of my own family history (I’m a sixth generation Texan) and life in San Antonio via art. But, the story of the missions and the landscape of Texas take center stage. I appear in the San Jose painting  realizing my vision of my life as  a painter of the San Antonio landscape.  There I admire and honor, in this painting  the fabulous artists of San Antonio who virtually created its signature art: Mencheca, Pedro Huizar, the identified sculptor of Rosas Window and  the beautiful portal into San Jose and San Antonio’s famous bluebonnet painters Porfirio Salinas and Julian Onderdonk.  The Alamo painting is the  last painting due to the Fall plein air element, Fall appearing late and ephemerally in south central Texas. This painting aspires to have many personal and historical elements which are important to my life which has included the Great Loop area throughout  my life and shape this memory driven painting.

I have used  the most extensive use of heavy 3-D acrylic texture which is almost like sculpting in paint—  I call it super impasto— in any large paintings to date.   The paintings are  ALL the same artist’s acrylic  structure paint, medium and varnish I use in all of my paintings, there is no other support or medium used.  This method takes an excruciating amount of time and the vision of these paintings became more involved with the missions themselves, the asequias, the art, the natural landscape of this area.  I am very grateful to have gotten the opportunity to try to depict it in a new way due to the Department of Arts and Culture Individual Artist Grants.  There are so many naturalists, historians, Park Rangers and others to thank for their assistance.