Restoration, Residencies, Revitalization
By Lauren Elizabeth Shults
Yoshitomo Nara’s “Miss Forest,” an almost 4,500-pound sculpture of a girl with a 25-foot tree atop her head, greets visitors from the Center Point Art sculpture garden. Sara Story, interior designer and director of Center Point Art, says it’s for the children, to let them dream big, but all can breathe in her wonder. “The world is a magical place,” she said.
An unincorporated town of just over 4,000 residents between Kerrville and Comfort, Center Point is steadily revitalizing. And Center Point Art (CPA) has quickly become a modern cultural cornerstone for the town, defining its art aesthetic.
“Miss Forest’s” eyes are closed in a dream-like state. She’s made of bronze, and fingerprints of her sculptor are still evident, similar to a clay or plaster sculpture class project, and a reminder that art, even from the most widely-known artists, is still imaginative and full of playful innocence.
Story, born in Nara’s Japan, selected “Miss Forest” as the first sculpture in the garden because it resonates with her love of his whimsical work — something she intends to continue sharing with Center Point residents.
“It’s just happiness. It’s not serious,” she said. “It’s bringing that to a community,” Story said about selecting artists and artwork for CPA that inspire.
She plans to grow the sculpture garden, visible from the gallery and street. She’s also filled the gallery with works of Donald Judd, Haas Brothers and Harold Ancart. Story has anointed Center Point with an art scene.
“I see how interesting sculptures can open the door and start a dialogue in a community,” she said. “I want people to see how art creates beautiful things — I want that for center point.”
Story envisions “rigorous art and culture,” to help the community. She said she’s creating a space to cultivate culture and a focal point for art — a building block of community.
“I’d like to foster a community that has a shared interest in providing the best education, culture and opportunity to the community,” she said. “We are here to support.”
The New York-based interior designer was raised in Houston, but has roots in Center Point on the Guadalupe River, where she has visited her family ranch all her life. “Center Point and the community are close to our hearts.”
The CPA building was left neglected for many years before reopening in 2023, long after its initial 1859 opening as the town bank. Story keeps the integrity of the historical building, still using the bank vault, for example, as gallery space, where Donald Judd’s (1928-1994) Front Shelf Chair No. 84 in black sits centered against a brick wall.
Story believes strongly in historical restoration merged with contemporary art and design as a transformative aesthetic and educational experience.
Like in West Texas’ Marfa, she’s placing forward-thinking artists in this sparsely populated town. A residency program, with living quarters above the gallery, commissions international contemporary artists to live and work in town.
They’re “really engaging with the town,” Story said. “That makes it more interesting than just having a show every quarter or so.”
Artists bring their culture to the town in addition to their work, she said, while they get a sense of what Texas is. The program gives them a piece of Texas, “so when they go home, it’s also creating dialogue of an interchange of ideas and influences.”
Their stay concludes with an exhibition of their works, with accompanying pieces curated by Story, including Andro Wekua’s Pink Wave, 2011, oil on canvas, for Matt Tumlinson’s “Limestone Muse.” The day after Thanksgiving, the works of Tumlinson went on view, and will stay for three months. Joseph Awuah-Darko, a Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 artist, will share his African contemporary work April 8.
The art exhibitions at CPA will always be open to the community. Adjacent to the building, visitors can walk through the sculpture gar-den and congregate in open seating.
Story says she wants to use the exhibition space and outdoor sculptures to bring unprecedented installations to the area, which would otherwise only be found several hours away.
CPA is cultivating dialogue in the Central Texas region, she said, bringing both locals and residents to a focal point for cultural interaction. “It has been wonderful to get to know so many people in the community through the gallery,” Story said.
Sarah Rothstein, by way of meeting the Story family at a restaurant down the street, began working in the gallery in the fall of 2023.
After moving to Texas from Minnesota to start a business, she quickly became enmeshed in the social scene through a locally focused market a few doors down.
CPA uses art, a building block for community, to connect residents and foster more revitalization.
“Art has always been part of my psyche and heart,” Sara said. “My mom always exposed me to the beauty in art in various forms. I want to share that with center point.”
Story’s mother was a contemporary art museum curator in Houston, so growing up surrounded by art, she says it brings her immense inspiration and joy. In refreshing the town, she would like to provide similar art and unique experiences to residents. “I want the community to have opportunities to flourish, however that translates to the individuals in Center Point.”
Taking ones’ self out of the familiar is important to that, she said. In all her interior design projects, featured in Architectural Digest and the New York Times, artworks are always clearly the focal points.
In Center Point, she’s again using art as a focal point. She says she is beginning conversation on art, firstly with the sculpture garden, which people can circle on the property, or see from a car window.
“I’m always pushing myself to learn more and discover more,” Story said about finding art and muses. “Traveling is one of the components that really helps me do that.”
For her work, Story is almost always traveling internationally. She says it helps her to grow her passion of art, too.
Story is a featured Architectural Digest designer who divides her time between New York and Center Point. Opening this was always something she wanted to do. “I love learning about other cultures and finding the beauty in our similarities and differences,” she said.
She studies artists and architects — some she may collaborate with on projects in Texas. “It’s always all continuous and all together — just moving forward, learning more.”
Beginning with Judd in the 1970s, Marfa’s storied history became an international destination for art — something Story is curating for Central Texas.
“I love meeting the artists and discussing their process, Story said. “Each one is so different which makes it very interesting.”
San Antonian Matt Tumlinson was the artist in residence at CPA to round out 2023. “Limestone Muse,” which opened Nov. 24, 2023, incorporates elements of the land including charcoal and cochineal (an insect which lives on prickly pear cacti that create a deep crimson dye) in paintings and drawings, and found logs as plinths for wire sculptures of long-horns and armadillo.
Small paintings hang from the metal beams of the arched ceiling on one side, and Andro Wekua’s “Pink Wave,” two large, joined panels, stretch the entire opposite wall.
Tumlinson began as a muralist painting portraits of Texas legends Willie Nelson and Matthew McConaughey as David Wooderson in “Dazed and Con-fused” — “Alright, alright, alright.” His current works are of fewer portraits in live scenes in common western-inspired scenes and are now representative of the land.
On a long brick wall, are near-black paintings with red specks: the night drive in West Texas, outside of Lubbock, where you watch red lights on windmills flash for miles; streaks of colors you see speeding past desert land during pastel dawn or dusk; and a scene of colorful boxcars snaking along the foot of a desert mountain range.
Story’s favorite pieces from his collection are tin can boxes that lay open on the windowsills. One side as is used as a palette, the other a landscape painted en plein air.
He ties in elements from the earth: charcoal from a burn pile and cochineal, used almost like a paint.
The gallery will next host Ghanian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko, also known as Okuntakinte, in March. He runs the “Dear Artists” platform, a community to celebrate and encourage artists. “He creates sublime sculptural works,” Story said.
“I also want to work with the local schools to facilitate higher education in colleges or trade schools for local young people who want to pursue that.” She plans to bring programs to the community, including opportunities to further education and at the local high school, “…be that through a four-year university or through a trade school.” She and her husband are organizing scholarships.
“The goals for the educational programs are to let the young people growing up in Center Point to know, ‘I see you and I want to show you the incredible world out there through the lenses of diverse artists from around the world.’”
“I think that’s the best way to give back,” she said. “Center Point, Texas is my childhood home, my second home and my family.”
The Story family renovated several landmark buildings in town, and nearby Comfort, spurring a significant revitalization. Her family renovated a train station original to Center Point at its height. Several Texas Ranger houses have also been restored.
Established in 1859, Center Point is one of the oldest settlements in Central Texas and was initially a “center point” for trade. But in the 1920s and following Great Depression, the town suffered. The population dwelled in the hundreds for several decades during the 20th century.
“I have worked on a few projects in Texas, starting with my ranch which really captures Texas architecture and design,” she said, “using the natural material from Texas, limestone, oaks.
“We were really cognizant of making the architecture, the interior, anything we do, representative of Texas,” she said, “and what Texas brings to the table is the landscape. It’s all very genuine and authentic.”
She recently finished a home in Austin. “It’s quite groovy and fun,” she said.
She calls her home state loving, free-spirited and enthusiastic. “Texans are not afraid to have a loud laugh, have joy in our life!”
“There’s more on the horizon, for sure,” Story said about Center Point.