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ART
...camaraderie, and, sometimes, conflict

A more recently organized group-the Southwest Craft Center-is beginning to exercise a great deal of influence on the art community in San Antonio. Begun in 1968 to "perpetuate native crafts in the Southwest," the 500 members who make up the group are trying to educate the public in the art of hand-crafts and provide a place for craftsmen to display their work.  The latter purpose is fulfilled through the use of a gallery in La Villita, where over 100 juried craftsmen display for sale everything from pottery to rugs.

Mrs. A. F. Shoenig, director of the gallery explains: "The craftsman is dying out in our society due to the industrial revolution and the fact that machine-made products can be produced much more cheaply than handmade goods.  This gallery simply provides a place where craftsmen in this area can make some money and support themselves."

To teach crafts to the public, the Center sponsors adult-education classes and children's classes.  The most widely publicized aspect of the education program is the Saturday Morning Discovery Program, co-sponsored by the Craft Center and the San Antonio Independent School District 

A recent boon to this program has been the free use of the Old Ursuline Academy, provided by the San Antonio Con-

[[image: photo of Mel Casas]]

Mel Casas. "Some people push paint, but they're not artists, they're technicians," says 41-year-old Mel Casas.  "To be a true artist," he adds, " you must work with ideas."  Casas, an associate professor of art at San Antonio College, practices what he preaches, weaving one--and sometimes several-- "messages" into his 6-by-8-foot canvases.  Although he is a contemporary artist (his work is closely kin to the Pop art school), Casas bemoans some aspects of today's society: "An artist is like a dinosaur in America," he complains.  "We are becoming to collectivist...there is no longer room for individual expression in our country."

[[Image: Photo of Margaret Putnam]

Margaret Putnam. "My artistic career has been sort of like Topsy -- it just growed," says Margaret Putnam, a perennial prize-winner in San Antonio art shows.  A prolific painter, Mrs. Putnam says, "I don't do anything else now that the children (four daughters) are gone."  A dabbler in many art techniques and media, the walls of her home are covered with various works which show how her talent has developed through the years.  But despite her proven ability, she suffers the woes of most Sunday painters.  "I don't give many paintings to my girls," she says.  "I'm afraid they might feel they have to hang them somewhere."

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