From Galveston County - The Daily News, March 24/06
By Leslie Contreras
TEXAS CITY — Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans artists Ron Bechet and Lory Lockwood thought their work had nothing in common.
Lockwood meticulously documents the architecture of cars and motorcycles and the idolatry reflected in its chrome. Bechet covers wood panels with vibrant shades of blues and reds, transforming the swampy southeast landscape of Louisiana into a world of conflict and deception through images of intertwined vines and tree trunks.
When College of the Mainland curator Janet Hassinger saw their work at Lawndale Art Center in Houston, she spotted an immediate connection between both artists’ work.
Hassinger said she saw a similarity in the artists’ depiction of different forms and in how they “distorted them or wove them.”
She also liked the tension between their artworks. While Bechet depicts the organic world in a spiritual way, Lockwood focuses on how identity is reflected in the objects people desire.
The paintings are now on display at the college gallery through April 10. Brought together, they seem to create a conversation about man versus nature, Hassinger said.
It was nature, however, that forced both artists to find refuge in Houston for several months.
In New Orleans, Bechet and Lockwood ran in the same circles and respected each other’s work. But it wasn’t until after they joined the mass exodus of evacuees in Houston that they found out that their work shared a dialogue.
“I never thought (I would) have a show with him,” Lockwood said about her longtime colleague.
She said Hassinger made her realize there was “a certain essence or passion about both of the works.”
Bechet refers to music to describe the difference between his work and Lockwood’s. His work, he said, is more like improvisational jazz, while Lockwood is like a symphony.
Lockwood evacuated New Orleans the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, taking her husband, her cat and a disk together with some of her work. She considers herself lucky because most of her art was in Pennsylvania, where she had an upcoming exhibit.
Although her uptown studio and home survived, the building was heavily damaged by 6 feet of water and a blown-off roof.
Bechet’s studio was flooded with 5 feet of water and damaged by wind, but before leaving he had stored all of his work on the second floor, so most of his work was spared.
Both artists expected to be gone from their homes for only a few days. Bechet brought only watercolors, his computer and a couple days worth of clothes when he came to stay with son in Houston.
After weeks of inactivity from work, attempting to restart their creativity was a struggle.
Bechet said he usually starts his paintings with drawings of the environment and moves into what he described as a subconscious approach. In Houston, however, he was hesitant to navigate through a city he calls “too big.”
“For me, southern Louisiana is my spirit,” Bechet said. “I was having to find it using my memory.”
The smaller pieces by Bechet on display at the COM exhibit were all a product of his stay in Houston, and they reflect more abstract images in which he “moved into another space.”
While in Houston, Lockwood worked on two paintings: one of an Austin Healey grille, and a more abstract painting called “Old Glory.” Her pieces, which detail the intricacies of machinery, are very time-consuming. Each painting can take about 100 hours to make, she said.
Like Bechet, Lockwood said she wasn’t ready to venture onto any new artistic journeys. The Healey grille, she said, “felt safe.”
“It was really a time for me to work really hard and stay safe,” she said. “It was what carried me through and saved me from depression.”
Still, “Old Glory” overtly makes a statement about Lockwood’s perspective of the hurricane and its politics.
Lockwood had started painting before the storm, drawing inspiration from images taken of American flags reflected in a creek. The painting, which shows abstract shapes of red, white and blue distorted in the water, took on new meaning in Houston as she watched what happened to her hometown.
“I felt all levels of government failed and so the flag failed,” Lockwood said.
Bechet, who heads the department of art at Xavier University, has already resumed teaching classes and, like Lockwood, is re- establishing himself in New Orleans.
For him, it’s too soon to say how the experience will affect his art.
“I didn’t have a chance to process (it),” he said.
What: Weaving of Form art exhibit.
When: Through April 10.
Where: College of the Mainland, 1200 Amburn Road. Fine arts building.
Cost: Free.
Information: Call (409) 938-1211, Ext. 348 or Ext. 354.
