Art in the Park is this Sunday

BROWNSVILLE – Residents and art enthusiasts will have the opportunity to shop for some artwork by local artists at the sixth annual Art in the Park at Dean Porter Park Sunday in the Ringgold Civic Indoor Pavilion.

The event will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. and is free to the public. The Children’s Museum of Brownsville will offer face painting for the children.

"What we do is, we invite the artists from our area," said Dr. Romeo F. Montalvo, founder of Amigos Artistas which is organizing the event. Amigos Artistas is a nonprofit organization that promotes the visual arts in the community.

The purpose of the event is to allow artists to show their work, he said.

"It’s to help our local artists get known, being that we only have Gallery 409 in our area to represent them," Montalvo said. "And of course they can’t all be represented, but we have this so some of the artists that do not have the opportunity to show there at the gallery can show at Art in the Park."

There are some other venues in Brownsville where artists sometimes show their work, including the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art.

"We have some artists from northern Mexico and the Upper Valley," Montalvo said. "We sometimes get people from Houston. A few years ago we had somebody from Wimberley."

Montalvo said Oscar Alvarez and John Faulk are just two of the many artists that will show, and hopefully sell, their work at the event. Montalvo said he wasn’t sure how many artists, which will include painters, sculptors, and ceramists, will show at this year’s event.

"A lot of times we might have maybe 10 artists that are supposed to show, and the last moment we have 30," he said. "Like the first year we had 50, last year we had something like 35, and I really don’t know what we have up to now that have registered."

Montalvo said artists must donate 20 percent of what they earn from the sale of their paintings.

"We use that money to reinvest it into renting the different venues, like in this case we paid something like $1,500," he said. Amigos Artists holds various events throughout the year.

Wild Blue Restaurant, which was recently voted by Texas Monthly magazine as the best barbecue place in the Valley, will also be offering food at an extra cost.

For more information, send an email to

cortezmarisela@aol.com, or call 371-9822.

WHAT: Art in the Park

WHERE: Ringgold Civic Indoor Pavilion in Dean Porter Park,

Across from the Children’s Museum of Brownsville

WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 12

TIME: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

ADMISSION: Free

ART IN THE PARK