Mannti and Blanca Cummins spending this academic year as Tower Fellows at the University of Texas

 I am extremely proud of my brother Mannti and my sister-in-law Blanca. Both of them have been named Tower Fellows at the University of Texas at Austin based on their careers to date and their previous accomplishments. The Tower Fellow Program offers highly accomplished individuals an opportunity to come to Austin for two semesters to explore, discover, and reflect while being formally affiliated with the University. The program seeks participants who are eager to pause, think, and create an enriching professional and personal journey. Being a Tower Fellow is a full-time commitment. Each week's schedule typically includes a weekly lunchtime seminar with all members of the Tower Fellows Program cohort as well as faculty from across the university. They meet and interact with faculty members according to their interests and expertise while they pursue their individual projects.

Mannti Cummins is a pioneering leader in Renewable Energy. He is currently Project Director for Hydrogen City Texas, an integrated Green Hydrogen production, storage and transport hub slated to become the world's largest. Before this position, Mannti led development of 1.8 GW of operating wind energy, preventing annual emissions of 4 million tons of CO2, equivalent to that of 630,000 cars.

He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Texas A&M Corpus Christi with post graduate studies at New York University Institute of Taxation and is a CPA. An honors graduate of Thunderbird with a Master of International Management, he received a Diploma in Derecho de la Energia from La Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City, Mexico's leading law school. His academic focus as a Tower Fellow are the deployment challenges of Green Hydrogen including pipeline rights of way, hydrology and brackish groundwater treatment, electrical system architecture and interconnection, salt cavern storage and stakeholder engagement plans.

He is thrilled to be sharing the Tower Fellows experience with his wife Blanca and being close to their two daughters who reside in Austin and San Antonio.

Blanca Cummins, a native of Mexico, is a Communications and Advertising Executive, Montessori Educator, Catholic School Administrator and mother.

She is the founding director of Herrera Publicidad and served as Creative Director and Copywriter for multiple firms and media institutions resulting in award-winning advertising campaigns. She was a Television Producer for XHAK Channel 12, a Televisa affiliate in Hermosillo, and an Account Executive for El Imparcial, the leading daily newspaper in Northwestern Mexico. For the Universidad del Noroeste, Blanca was Coordinator of Community Outreach and Media Relations for the University.

At Corpus Christi Montessori School, a dual-language charter school, she was a founding classroom teacher and conducted research published in the Journal of Texas Council of English Language Arts. As Director for the Montessori School of Incarnate Word Academy she led credentialing by the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department and supported the fundraising efforts for construction of a new $4 million dollar Montessori building.

A graduate of Universidad del Noroeste with a degree in Ciencias de la Comunicación, she also was awarded a master's in education from Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Her Montessori Education credentials include Elementary Levels I & II from Sierra Madre Montessori in Monterrey, Mexico and Montessori School Administration from the Center for Montessori Education of New York in New Rochelle. She also earned a Certificate in Catholic School Leadership from the University of Dallas.

Her Tower Fellow goals include the organization and exposition of the photo archive of Alberto Herrera Fernandez, her father and a renowned photographer in Mexico, as well as developing communications strategies for the Synod on Synodality. Blanca balances her professional activities while raising two daughters and supporting her husband's efforts in Renewable Energy.

Speaking on San Antonio artist Mary Bonner at the Witte Museum

 

This weekend I gave a presentation on San Antonio Artist Mary Anita Bonner to the annual meeting of CASETA held at the Witte Museum. Bonner, a native of Louisiana, moved to San Antonio with her family as a young woman but experienced her first successes in Paris, France where she studied etching as her major artistic form of expression.  Bonner split her time as an artist between France and San Antonio during much of the 1920s before returning to the Alamo City, living there for almost a decade before her death. Much of her work, especially her etchings on Texas subjects, manifested a unique style and a singular form of expression which even today make them immediately identifiable, even by someone without artistic training or possessing an experienced eye for understanding art. This was the case for two reasons. First, many of her best-known works centered on Texas ranch life, especially focused on cowboys. This became the subject matter which dominated her most enduring art. Second, her style of expression rested on an angular presentation of one-dimensional representation which evoked a curious blend of block printing coupled to a sophisticated “cartoonish” panache which brought both humor and pathos to her subjects. Today, retrospectively three generations after her passing, Bonner’s reputation has considerably dimmed in San Antonio except for those aware of the city’s artistic heritage. Nonetheless, for those aware individuals familiar with the development of the visual arts not only in the Alamo City, but all across the Lone State, Mary Bonner’s star still shines vibrantly in the pantheon of women who have made contributions to Texas art.

Mary Anita Bonner

 

Copy Editing Finished

 

Vicki and I are the co-editors and among the fifteen contributors to a forthcoming book entitled "Making Your Unknown Known: Women in Early Texas Art, 1860s-1960s." It will be published by the Texas A&M University Press in March of 2024. We have just finished this week responding to the copy editing of the volume, which means that it is currently on track to meet its debut deadline.

The title of this book comes from a quotation by iconic female artist Georgia O’Keefe who lived in Canyon, Texas during the very early years of her career. She wrote: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” It is in that spirit the female artists in Texas made meaningful contributions to Texas art from the nineteenth century down to the latter part of the twentieth century.

This volume will concentrate roughly on the period from the Civil War era to the late 1960s. It will survey the contributions women made to art and sculpture in the Lone Star state during that time period. It will be composed of chapters which will assess the role female artists have played in interpreting the meaning, history, heritage, and unique character of Texas. This volume will provide the reader with an understanding of the role women artists have played in the development of the fine arts in Texas, with special reference to geographical areas of the state where female artists have been active. The book will also highlight representative women artists whose work and contributions have significantly advanced the cause of the fine arts in the Lone Star state.