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Art at Work: Mieko Hathaway (and a bunch of second graders)

By Michael C. Smith

I posted recently on our reception for the local artists that provided works for the new office's opening exhibition, The Shoe Show.  Many of these artists provide works regular for display at our office through our "Art at Work" program where we display artwork by our local artists and I post on it online.  As I've noted recently, we have a thriving local art community in downtown Marshall, and we have provided them with two 14' x 40' walls (with appropriate lighting) to put up their work in the new offices.  (Across the street from our offices is the Michelson Museum and across the street from that is the Marshall Visual Art Center, so you can overdose on original artwork real quick within a stone's throw from here.)

I posted on local artist Mieko Hathaway a couple of years ago, but I decided to again today because she has been selling artwork off our walls with some regularity recently - and today showed up to walk off with another piece.  The first, Not Forgotten was carried off by my partner Clyde Siebman for display at our Sherman office (Clyde's big on flags and boots).  Mieko replaced it with The Celebration, a beautiful watercolor of spider lilies, and today showed up to carry that one off as it has now been sold as well.  It has been replaced by Iris, Irises - for how long, we don't know.  (But we miss the spider lilies already).

But the real highlight, as the herd of patent lawyers that graced our offices during last week's status conferences likely puzzled over, are the two Adirondack chairs in the foyer of the visiting lawyer side of the offices.   No, they aren't examples of East Texas Primitive - they are chairs painted as class projects by my two second graders' classes that were auctioned off at the school's spring fundraiser week before last.  (The actual chairs were built by Marshall lawyer Jennifer Truelove's dad, then turned over to the classes). Getting your kids' class projects at the auction is a contact sport here in Marshall, and we were lucky to snag two of our kids' three this year without doing irreparable damage either to our friendships with other parents or our pocketbook.  I carried them down to the Hub after the event (which was at the MVAC, which as I said above is just around the corner), and decided they don't look too bad on temporary display in front of Sally Martin's triptych on Caddo Lake.  One's a frog (well, obviously) and the other is camouflaged, complete with netting.  

The swamps and waterfowl motif is a common one locally - as these minutes from my trial last week in Tyler note, Download Minutes(and illustrate - see p. 2) Judge Davis had the memorable experience of having his cell phone start quacking (literally - that was the ring tone) during trial when a duck hunting buddy decided to call.   

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on February 21, 2011 (boomark / email).