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Unexpected and Profound: We devote this month's column to destinations less traveled — and a pair of exhibitions that surprise, challenge, enchant, uplift, invoke social justice, and ultimately, add a spiritual component to our scene. In our secular time fueled by a frenzied market, a work of art can feel more like a commodity than a venerated object. Moments for contemplation are rare, if nonexistent. The museum that comes closest to providing these is The Menil Collection, so perhaps it's not coincidence that Surpik Angelini's Transart Foundation, founded 1996 and located since 2018 in a Zen-like sanctuary blocks from The Menil, steps forward with an exhibition that begs the viewer to slow down, bask in beauty, and seek the mystic: "Susan Plum: Woven Heaven Tangled Earth." Plum is the conjurer of moments that edge towards quiet communion with the sacred in this reductive installation filled with an understated sense of the cosmos. Among the most overlooked talents working in Texas today, this octogenarian Latina brings with her a quest for the divine, inspired by her roots in Mexico paired with decades- long investigations in divination, astrology, ritual, weaving, sacred geometry, and dowsing. She was one of the early stars of the 1980s/1990s- e r a S e a t t l e G l a s s Movement, recognized for her Jungian chalices and forms bearing hermetic, archetypal symbols. Her grasp of eclectic media (painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, installation, p e r f o r m a n c e , a n d especially glass) has made her talent hard to categorize for art historians. "Woven Heaven Tangled Earth" is a collaboration between the artist and Transart's Angelini, who functions both as curator and artist whisperer. The exhibition provides a guidepost for the intuitive viewer to wander a path towards discovery, understanding, and finally, a union with the transcendental. As Angelini writes in the catalog, "An invisible cosmic energy seems to fuel a deep wisdom that invests all of Plum's art making … mystical visions of the Milky Way, different versions of the Tree of Life, a panoply of enigmatic objects crafted out of glass … and most notably, a series of sculptures or channeled Star Beings she believes have come to help us retrieve our compass lost in the shifting age we live in." "Susan Plum: Woven Heaven Tangled Earth," at The Transart Foundation, through September 3 0 , t h e t ra n s a r t foundation.org. "Kristine Mays: Rich Soil" at Houston Botanic Garden aligns with Plum's installation-based exhibition in terms of mining magic via weaving. In Mays' case, the medium is metal. The venue for "Rich Soil" is the 132-acre repurposed former Glenbrook Park Golf Course, minutes from UH and Hobby Airport — an underknown green oasis with lavish plantings, some 1,200 species, that speak to our region's verdant ecosystem. The garden has featured public art programs since its 2020 opening, but with "Rich Soil," the art takes on a unique resonance far beyond placing objects in nature for decorative oohs and aahs. Mays' sculpture dialogues with the garden's trails and glades, bringing to mind Donovan's 60's-era folk song "Catch the Wind." Twenty-nine works literally sprout from the Earth, organically wafting with the breezes, conversing with Art Notes 22 Kristine Mays' Celestial Prayer Meeting, 2018, at Houston Botanic Garden INKA-MAARIA JURVANEN PAUL PELC Susan Plum with her exhibition "Woven Heaven Tangled Earth" at The Transart Foundation (Continued on page 72) R A C H E L S O L A R - R E A L T O R ® | 7 1 3 . 4 1 6 . 1 6 0 0 | R A C H E L . S O L A R @ S I R . C O M | R A C H E L S O L A R . C O M Superior service shouldn't be a luxury.