Sept. 1st First Thursday

A plethora of events are scheduled for Beaumont’s “First Thursday” on Thursday, Sept. 1, including the Art Museum of Southeast Texas and The Art Studio, Inc.

Beginning at 5 p.m., The Art Studio (720 Franklin St.) will host an exhibition titled “Vulnerable” of paintings by Sarah VonKain for the entire month in its Maudee Carron Gallery with a free public reception.

Originally from Orange, VonKain received a bachelor’s degree in Art Education from Lamar University in 2014 and a master’s degree in Modern Art History from Azusa Pacific University in 2021. She said she has “left a piece of myself in every place I have been.”

“My biggest influence for these pieces has been the events of the past year of my life,” said VonKain. “They, like the works, have forced me to confront who I am and the raw reality of life. I would describe the works as relatable raw emotions.”

AMSET (500 Main St.) will stay open until 7:30 p.m. during First Thursday for the final Thursday to visit, “Documents & Dwellings” by Keliy Anderson Staley, which is on view through Sept. 18. Anderson-Staley is a Houston-based artist and currently works as the Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Media at the University of Houston.

The exhibition includes a 10-foot by 10-foot house structure covered in more than 560 tintype portraits; a selection of antique baking pans with emulsified images on their surfaces; a grid of tintypes of Anderson-Staley’s biological and adoptive fathers; multiple volumes of palimpsest books made with prints and cyanotypes; as well as 8-foot by 5-foot quilts made from notebook pages, handwritten letters, and photographs. The exhibition will demonstrate Anderson-Staley’s unique and personal investigation into the definitions of home, family and community.