Troy Broussard

Seeing big Shadow Monsters at a big museum

Shadow Monsters at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. The always glamorous Stacey Abbott accepted my invitation for an excursion to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston the other day which we would follow by a bite of lunch. Of course Hapsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections is the main event this summer. But I also knew that there was an exhibit called Shadow Monsters of which, admittedly, I knew little about. Shadow Monsters is an interactive art installation by artist Philip Worthington. When the museum visitor steps in front of the artist’s camera a digital version of a traditional shadow-puppet theater show is projected onto the walls, the human silhouette being recast into fantastical forms. Somehow ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-07-17T11:25:40-05:00July 17, 2015|Destinations, Galleries & Museums|

The Heywood Building – painting a Louisiana landmark

"Sunday Morning Main" by Troy Broussard, depicting Jennings, LA, & the Heywood Building; collection of Wendell Miller. While handling some business recently in Jennings, Louisiana, primarily related to Mother’s funerary aftermath, I took time to visit a few friends as well as to view a few of my paintings. And one of the larger paintings done over the course of my art career can be found on Main Street in the lobby of the office of attorney Wendell Miller. "Sunday Morning Main" hangs in the lobby of attorney Wendell Miller's office, Jennings. Sunday Morning Main is a monumental cityscape done as an integral part of my Troy Broussard Paints the Town series, a collection of local ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-07-16T08:17:23-05:00July 15, 2015|Destinations, TroysArt|

Galveston, Tropical Storm Bill, and the art of hurricane panic

The unsinkable Graham Gemoets, Galveston. I love Galveston—it’s such a short drive from Houston but such a world away from the city. My buddy Graham Gemoets has a charming little getaway there near The Strand. With Mother’s passing and as hard as I have been working I felt long overdue for a trip and quality time with a friend. Mr. Gemoets is almost seven feet tall and more outrageous than can be recounted here--he should have his own TV show. Anyway, a Tropical Disturbance, soon to become Tropical Storm Bill, was churning in the Gulf with all spaghetti models projecting a route directly to Houston. But I was damned determined to get out of town, so with one eye on ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-06-19T10:38:27-05:00June 18, 2015|Destinations, Food & Beverage, Lifestyle|

The revered Rothko Chapel

Photo by Hickey-Robertson, the Rothko Chapel, Houston. One of the first attractions I heard about when I moved to Houston was the highly revered Rothko Chapel. But back in 1987 I regrettably knew little about Mark Rothko; I was green enough to stick in the ground and grow. I studied up on Rothko a bit and looked forward to the excursion. So imagine my chagrin when, for the first time, I walked into this esteemed sanctuary and wondered where all the paintings were. But I did find the paintings, they were right in front of my face, and I have been back for many visits… “But nobody is visually naive any longer. We are cluttered with images, and ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-06-30T19:07:07-05:00June 8, 2015|Artists, Destinations, Galleries & Museums|

The true meaning of Memorial Day – Discounts?

Arlington National Cemetery by Andrew Bossi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons. Formerly known as Decoration Day (the day to decorate the graves of the fallen), the federal holiday of Memorial Day was created in commemoration of those who died while serving in the United States military. Observed yearly on the last Monday of May, this year it falls on May 25th. But over the past 150 years Memorial Day has morphed into alternative connotations. Many Americans have come to accept that the new true meaning of Memorial Day is Discounts! For the past several years I have been a designer for a major American furniture brand. And while my skills are better suited for one-on-one interaction with ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-07-15T22:45:45-05:00May 17, 2015|Lifestyle|

The art of the Trumeau Mirror

Louis XVI style Trumeau Mirror, French c. 1850, 45 x 64”, $6,388, from Carl Moore Antiques. You’ve probably seen one in the movies, in a museum, or in someone’s home but didn’t know the proper term. During the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, large mirrors mounted within the paneling over a mantel or between windows would often have a painting incorporated above. This is what is referred to as a Trumeau Mirror. Trumeau is an architectural term designating space between vertical elements in an interior such as space between doors, windows, or pilasters. And in the century prior to the French Revolution it was much in vogue to fill the space with mirror in order to ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-05-07T15:42:15-05:00May 7, 2015|Antiques, Furniture & Design, TroysArt|

My encounter with Playa del Carmen

The Mayan Gateway - a 52 foot, 60 ton bronze sculpture by Jose Arturo Tavares in Playa del Carmen The town of Playa del Carmen barely existed when I was born… it was basically an undeveloped region of beach and jungle. In the 1960s it gained notoriety when Jacques Cousteau filmed a documentary about the Great Mayan Reef, the second largest barrier reef in the world. Once he labeled it the world’s top diving site, the Island of Cozumel took flight as a tropical playground. This post is a brief account of my encounter with the Yucatan Peninsula. Mayan ruins of Xaman Ha in Playacar Playa del Carman is the site of ancient Maya ruins known as Xaman Ha. Xaman ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-05-01T14:34:26-05:00April 30, 2015|Destinations|

Naked & Afraid’s Billy Berger, and my new Cufflinks

Custom sterling & mahogany obsidian cufflinks with points by Naked & Afraid's Billy Berger. Have you seen Discovery Channel’s hit show Naked & Afraid? And are you wondering what Naked & Afraid star Billy Berger has to do with my newest pair of cufflinks? To enlighten unaware TroysArt readers, Naked & Afraid is a reality TV show that matches two specialists in the art of survival, a man and a woman, who meet in a Godforsaken hellhole and are given the task of surviving for 21 days, naked. The participants disrobe, meet, get down to the almost impossible task of finding potable water, food, and shelter before making a journey to an extraction point where they are rescued. They don’t even have ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-04-23T22:42:50-05:00April 23, 2015|Artists, Entertainment|

Climbing the Mayan Ruins at Tulum

The Temple of the Descending God at Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico The prospect of climbing the Mayan ruins at Tulum greatly interested me. After all, I've never seen New World ruins before... While I’ve heard that Chichen Itza is considered by many to be the king of Mayan ruins, the site at Tulum must certainly be the queen. Situated on a tall cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea (in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico), Tulum was one of the last Maya inhabited cities, 70 years past Spanish occupation—though the golden era for this fortified port city was between the 13th and 15th Century. Tulum faces east toward the rising sun and was also known as Zama meaning City ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-04-26T10:24:48-05:00April 22, 2015|Destinations|

Two Guys and Rothko

Orange, Red, Yellow by Mark Rothko, 1961, sold in 2013 for $87 million, fair use via Wikipedia.org Not long ago I was talking to Michael Anderson who now lives in San Francisco, whom TroysArt also refers to as Manderson. Manderson and I used to paint together and actually had a few public exhibitions of our work such as Two Guys Painting at the Lowell Collins Gallery. Our shtick was to both undertake the same still life, landscape, or sitter with the outcomes, as interpreted through two different artistic minds, displayed side by side. It was, to say the least, a fascinating experiment. At any rate he was telling me about his idea to do a painting as an ode ...

By Troy Broussard|2015-04-20T16:51:44-05:00April 16, 2015|Artists, TroysArt|

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