The Graduates

FRI 3/26

Stressed-out, exhausted, jubilant, relieved and quite possibly inebriated graduates
will be in attendance — along with their art, of course — at this Friday’s
opening of the “2004 Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition” at the Blaffer
Gallery. The show is the culmination of the University of Houston’s three-year
MFA program and is always a great chance to see fresh work by emerging artists.
Some of the standouts include Steve Neves’s giant Medusa head, which re-creates
the Greek mythological figure with a twist, incorporating industrial materials
and working televisions into her killer visage. Meanwhile, Joe Ives makes witty
art out of absurd, obsessive problem solving — just imagine packing-crate staircases
that lead to nowhere. In other past-confronts-present works, Soody Sharifi digitally
inserts photographed figures into 15th-century Persian miniature paintings,
with the results depicting contemporary Iranian girls in chadors showing pictures
of Eminem to their 15th-century counterparts. Also in the digital realm, Bonnie
Smith Newman’s photographs appropriate images of Wonder Woman, placing the heroine-sexpot
in Houston environments. And Christopher Talbot’s panoramic photographs revisit
the 1,000-mile walk his apparently hardy ancestors made from Iowa City, Iowa,
to High Plains, Wyoming. (Talbot wisely drove instead of walking.)

One of the best ways to learn about the works is to ask the artists themselves.
If you miss them at the opening, they will be talking about their works in a
series of lunchtime conversations at the Blaffer Gallery at noon on March 30
and 31, and on April 1, 6 and 8. The exhibition opens from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday, March 26. Through Sunday, April 11. 120 Fine Arts Building, University
of Houston, 713-743-9530. Free. — Kelly Klaasmeyer

Lettuce Get It On

Think you know your lettuce? Then surely you know that grocery-store iceberg
is the Chevy of lettuce, red leaf is a well-equipped Acura and the crimson-leafed
Merveille des Quatre Saisons is a Rolls Royce. You’ll fit right in with Camille
Waters, Houston’s maven of from-the-ground, straight-to-plate greens. Her salads
adorn the plates of Houston’s toniest eateries, and she’s become a darling of
the local and national press. Waters’s annual garden party features local chefs
transforming her heirloom roughage and edible flowers into gourmet dishes, as
well as live jazz, big hat contests and a kiss-a-pug booth. “It’s still a picnic
for everyone,” says Waters. “We even sit on bales of hay.” 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Sunday, March 28. Camille Waters’s Gardens, 610 Jackson Hill at Blossom. For
information, call 713-880-5540. $30. — Steven Devadanam

Stand Up Straight

TUE 3/30

If your favorite science textbook can be found in the top drawer of any hotel
room across the nation, then the Human Origins lecture series probably isn’t
for you. The professors giving these talks aren’t satisfied with explanations
along the lines of “Presto! And then there was man.” The series kicks off this
week with a discussion by Craig Stanford, a professor of anthropology and biology
at the University of Southern California and the director of the Bwindi-Impenetrable
Great Ape Project in Uganda. (His project is called BIGAPE for short, which
is, we’re sorry to say, a classic example of Bastardized Acronym Denotation.)
In his lecture, Stanford will discuss recent research on where and why humans
began to stand upright. We doubt it had anything to do with being able to reach
the collection plate. 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 30. Houston Museum of Natural Science,
One Hermann Circle Drive. For information, call 713-639-4629 or visit www.hmns.org.
$12 to $15. — Keith Plocek

Like Mother, Like Daughter
A family spins through the cycle in Love and Diane

Most of us feel the same way about Child Protective Services as we do about
cops and tow-truck drivers: These people are necessary for society, yes, but
we sure as hell don’t want them knocking on our door. So it goes with
the title characters of Jennifer Dworkin’s new film, Love and Diane.
As a child, Love told a teacher that her mother, Diane, was a drug addict, and
away Love went to a foster home. Now Love has her own child who might be taken
away from her, all because of Diane’s well-intentioned confessions to a therapist.
Mix in the fact that Love is HIV-positive, and you’ve got a seriously heart-wrenching
tale. The film screens as part of the Houston International AIDS Film Festival.
7 p.m. Tuesday, March 30. Aurora Picture Show, 800 Aurora. For a full schedule
of films and venues, call 832-822-1366 or visit www.bayloraids.org.
$7. — Keith Plocek

Book ‘Em

Bibliophiles, welcome to heaven. There will be over 80,000 books for sale on every subject imaginable at this weekend’s Bargain Book Sale at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Yep, that’s right: 80,000. But before you hop in your bookmobile and head out, you might want to make an appointment with a masseuse. After all, you’re going to have one helluva sore neck by the time you’re done perusing all those shelves with your head tilted sideways. Special first-dibs preview for members of Friends of the Houston Public Library 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, March 26. $20. Open to the public 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 27; noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 28. 1001 Avenida de las Americas. For information, call 832-393-1387 or visit www.friendsofhpl.org. Free. — Keith Plocek