On a quiet Saturday morning, the Bryan-College Station area buzzed with excitement for the activities ahead. Some tucked white towels in their boots while others flocked to local businesses on Wellborn Road. However, on the other side of town, local artists set up booths to share their passions with all who come to enjoy.
On Sept. 6, Bryan-based art exhibition, Degallery, celebrated the start of the month with First Saturday: an event with art, live jazz, food and community.
Artists of all mediums and walks of life came together to not only share their creations, but also the sentiment that anyone can partake in the subject, so long as they start.
“I’m a COVID painter,” local artist Gene Smith said. “I used to wake up early in the morning and have nothing to do. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I went to my doctor, and I said, ‘Doc, what do I do?’ He said, ‘Well, get up. Let’s do something.’ I started flipping through the TV and found Bob Ross there one day and thought, ‘Hmm, this is interesting.’… Bob says, ‘Now, anybody can do this. You don’t have to be blessed by Michelangelo to do it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ But it started calling me, and I wanted to try it — so I started.”
Smith and his wife shared a booth displaying both of their acrylic painting creations depicting nature and wildlife. As a beginner, Smith was hesitant to call himself an artist, but like many art vendors at the event, he was encouraged by the gallery’s owner, Dary Dega.
For some vendors, this meant being reunited with a long-lost hobby.
“For many years, I was a high school teacher, so that kind of took me away from painting, and since I retired, I really picked it up again,” local artist Vicki Halsell said. “I take classes here at the gallery, and so Miss Dary offered that I should try First Saturday.”
Dega started the First Saturday tradition in 2020 to provide a space for artists to sell and promote their work after initially being turned down by the coordinators of First Friday. Since then, First Saturday has started at 11 a.m. each month, just like its Friday counterpart.
The timing of the event is no coincidence, as Dega hosts the market in hopes visitors can stay the weekend for Friday’s festivities, the local farmers market the next morning and wrap up their trip with a gallery pit-stop. Her year-round gallery exhibitions have allowed her to contribute to the growing art scene in Bryan while also supporting fellow artists around the globe.
“We try to make all artists from different countries,” Dega said. “They’re different artists and also talented kids around the world. So most of my artwork is all my friends and all artists from Russia, Ukraine and Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and other different countries like Argentina, Canada and Cuba.”
Artists who work closely with Dega at Degallery, like Wendy Wright ‘21, also came to share their perspectives and talents. For Wright, this meant blending her academic background in ecology and biology with her watercolor and acrylic pieces.
“I’ve always enjoyed art,” Wright said. “I have three kids, and I found that one of the things that we can all agree on and sit down to do together is painting or creating something. Otherwise, everybody has sort of different interests. So this is a really nice way to sort of decompress, distress, but also have some valuable family time.”
Wright serves as a secretary for Dega’s nonprofit organization, DEGA International Art Association, which provides scholarships to young artists passionate about their craft. Dega continues to uplift the local art community and hopes to inspire others who often overlook its importance.
“For all communities, not just the art community, we need people to support art, not just sports, and not just everything ‘money,’” Dega said. “I understand art is not profitable in an artist-specific area, but art is our mental health. Art is our future, and art is always and forever, our history.”
