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Take a break before the holidays gear up to full force and visit an art gallery in Pilot Point.
The Farmer’s and Merchant’s Gallery on the square in Pilot Point is featuring “Texas Art, Past and Present” through Jan. 27.
Wes Miller owns the gallery and antique shop housed in what once was a bank. The bank closed in 1931. Miller bought the building in 1975, restored it, and eventually opened the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Gallery.
He holds at least two exhibits a year, one at the end of the year and one in the spring. The current exhibit is an eclectic combination of paintings in various styles and ceramic work.
Justine Wollaston exhibits her work regularly at the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Gallery. Her paintings in this exhibition are flowers and vines and a dandelion that grew outside her back porch. To her they all were performing a sort of botanical opera through this past summer. The dandelion is the star of the show, while small brilliant pink birds provide a chorus.
“I’ve got to express this as some kind of symphony or opera,” she said. “The sunflower needed to do an aria while this little dandelion needs to trumpet his existence.”
Wollaston is also known in the area for her murals in houses and on buildings. The longhorns on the bank building on Preston and Pecan in Celina are her work.
She was also commissioned by the City of Frisco to paint a historical map of Frisco that is now on display in the Frisco Senior Center.
Another artist featured in the gallery, in Hampton, paints balloons that look so realistic it looks as if they want to escape their frames and float around the room.
“I like balloons because of their color and their energy,” Hampton said. “I like the symbolism of the balloons’ ups and downs.”
Most of her paintings are a series centered on a specific theme. She said sometimes a series of paintings can turn into one. “Part of the fun is playing with scale and size.”
The exhibition also features Jim Rozek, Diana Goudy, John Taylor, Randy Myers, Marty Ray, Richard Ray, Marlene F. Renee and Wes Miller.
Gallery hours are Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
