Exhibition opens today at Pilot Point gallery

The Farmer’s & Merchant’s Gallery in Pilot Point opens its new exhibition today at the gallery, 100 N. Washington St.

Paintings, sculptures and photography are featured in the exhibit. Participating artists are Hector Bernal, Bill Barnett, Paula Cadle, Diane Goudy, Michael Gray, Lin Hampton, Christen Humphries, Wes Miller, Marty Ray, Richard Ray, David Schulze, John Taylor and Jim Rozek.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Appointments are encouraged by calling 940-686-2396. For more information, visit www.farmersandmerchantsgallery.com.

Local artist creates stained glass artwork

A Denton business owner and artist designed a work of stained glass that will soon be a permanent part of a Pottsboro church.

Christie A. Wood, owner of Art Glass Ensembles of Denton, created the stained glass window Lake Texoma Communion. The piece was made as a memorial for Wood’s late uncle, Clifford Thomas, whose family attends Lakeway United Methodist Church in Pottsboro. The piece depicts Lake Texoma birds at sunrise or sunset.

The stained glass was part of the “Merging Visions” exhibit at local libraries, which pairs poems by members of the Denton Poets Assembly with art by members of the Visual Arts Society of Texas. Wood’s piece was paired with a poem by Karla K. Morton, Denton resident and Texas Poet Laureate.

The stained glass will be dedicated in a private ceremony next Sunday. Morton will read her poem at the service.

UNT faculty member returns from festival

University of North Texas faculty member and documentary filmmaker Eugene Martin is winding down from his jaunt to the Tribecca Film Festival in New York City, where he was invited to share a trailer for his 90-minute documentary and answer questions about it.

Martin, who teaches in the documentary filmmaking master’s program, hasn’t finished his film, which is about the Anderson Monarchs Girls Soccer Club in Philadelphia. The club has earned attention for its part in transforming the lives of urban girls younger than 12. Martin said showing a trailer and answering questions is a good way to get interest in a film before its finished.

Martin plans to finish his documentary by January and have it premiere before the Women’s World Cup finals, scheduled to begin June 26, 2011. He hopes it will air on HBO, PBS or London’s Channel 4. 

Mandolin orchestra to play in Denton May 9

Denton will have an opportunity to hear the sounds of the Netherlands next Sunday.

ONI, a Dutch mandolin orchestra, will be playing at First Presbyterian Church, 1114 W. University Drive.

ONI — which stands for ontspanning na inspanning, or rest after exertion — was founded in 1915 and is the oldest mandolin orchestra in the Netherlands, said Alice Derbyshire, who is a friend of the orchestra’s director and invited it to play in the U.S.

“It’s a rare form of music,” she said.

The orchestra is made up of 26 musicians playing mandolins, mandolas, mandocello, guitars and basses.

“The repertoire of music ranges from the 17th century to 21st century,” she said. “And they will be debuting a couple pieces written for this tour.”

The concert will begin at 6 p.m. and it is free and open to the public.

For more information, call 940-387-3894.

— Rachel Mehlhaff

Roanoke girl named semifinalist for prize

An 11-year-old girl from Roanoke is offering smiles to hospital patients.

Emily Lites created Emily Smile Boxes, which are boxes filled with stuffed animals, toys, coloring supplies and notepads, to help hospital patients.

She has handed out more than 550 boxes and raised about $4,000.

Lites is a semifinalist in the Huggable Heroes program launched by Build-A-Bear to recognize young people who are making a difference in their communities. Finalists will be chosen in June.

Since the program was formed in 2004, it has been recognizing 10 Huggable Heroes a year. Each finalist will receive $10,000 — a $7,500 scholarship and $2,500 to be donated to the charity of the finalist’s choice — and a trip to the Build-A-Bear Workshop World Bearquarters in St. Louis.

Panel to discuss Fort Worth Opera show

KERA’s Art&Seek is hosting a panel discussion about the premiere of the Fort Worth Opera’s Before Night Falls.

The opera, written by Jorge Martin, is a look at Fidel Castro’s rise to power through the eyes of Reinaldo Arenas, a counterrevolutionary novelist who was imprisoned and tortured for publishing manuscripts outside Cuba.

The discussion held by Art&Seek, a multimedia information service for North Texas arts, music and culture, is called “Before Night Falls: Relationships, Politics and Opera” and will feature Martin, opera principals Wes Mason and Janice Hall and costumer Claudia Stephens.

The free discussion will be at 7 p.m. May 12 in the Robert J. O’Donnell Lecture-Recital Hall in the Owen Arts Center at Southern Methodist University, 6101 Bishop Blvd. in Dallas.

The opera will debut May 29 and be performed June 6 during the Fort Worth Opera Festival.

UNT doctoral student to study in Mexico

Maria De La Luz Leake, a teacher pursuing a doctoral degree in art education from the University of North Texas, was one of 16 U.S. teachers selected for a Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad trip to Mexico this summer.

Leake’s trip will take her to Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan, Mexico City and Quintana Roo June 27 through July 30. She will visit rural and urban settings to meet teachers, artisans and specialists and learn more about the language, history and culture of Mexico.

Leake is an art teacher at Obadiah Knight Elementary School in the Dallas school district. She plans to collect visual artifacts for her students to study and discuss.

“About 95 percent of the students I work with are Hispanic, so this is a fantastic way to correlate our shared history and culture with interdisciplinary art education,” Leake said.