Daily-ist Wednesday: Contemporary Salon

Houstonist fantasizes about the time when poets and artists would lounge around drinking wine and eating cheese and talking — no, brainstorming — about fancy-pants things like painting and iambic pentameter. We've always wanted to be members of a creative salon like the 17th century French or the 20th century Alqonquins.

Tonight, the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston will host a contemporary salon to discuss the gallery's current exhibition, Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry.

Texas Oil is an unsual exhibit organized by The Center for Land Use Interpretation, a research organization based in Culver City, Calif. The CLUI is involved in exploring, examining, and understanding land and landscape issues. Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry is the culmination of the CLUI’s study of Texas and shows how the extraction and refining of oil has sculpted the state’s terrain. The exhibition is on display at the Blaffer gallery through March 29.

Tonight's salon will focus on the ways in which the CLUI engaged UH art students and members of the community during the course of their research. The event is free and open to the public, who are encouraged to participate. Light refreshments will be provided.

Contemporary Salon
Admission: Free
Date and Time: 6 p.m. tonight
Location: Blaffer Gallery, 120 Fine Arts Building at U of H, 4800 Calhoun Rd.

Photo: A pair of arched pipelines designed to help regulate product flow at Rohm & Haas’ Deer Park plant. This piece of land was once part of Dr. George Patrick′s Deepwater Farm, an historically significant place that briefly served as the seat of power of the Texas Republic immediately after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Image courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.