December 14, 2017: A Carriage Ride Through Highland Park
	November 28, 2017: Christmas Decorations at the Dallas Arboretum
	Return to the Index for 2017

Fred and I have come down to San Antonio to help Prudence get ready for the opening of her gallery- Art Gallery Prudencia. I've been doing some preliminary work on her website, and have been putting together some spreadsheets for her to use to track her gallery's inventory and sales. The last time we were here, for Thanksgiving, I brought her a new laptop to use in the gallery, and I am doing more setup work this week. We actually came down on Wednesday, December 6, in preparation for the Opening Reception which will be on Friday night.

Getting to the Ruckman's House in San Antonio

You have probably seen an album page where we visit San Antonio, but in case you haven't, I want to show you the route to San Antonio from Dallas and where Prudence and Ron and Guy are located.

On the maps below, you can see the route to the Ruckmans' house. It is an easy matter to simply hop on I-35E from the Tollway in Dallas and take that highway all the way south through Austin to San Antonio. This 280-mile trip routinely takes about 4.5 hours. In San Antonio, we continue to follow I-35 into the city, eventually exiting onto San Pedro Avenue. We take that north about two miles, and either hang a left on Ashby and a right on Breeden or just a left on French to get to the Ruckmans' house on the northeast corner of Breeden and French.

In case you have not seen them, I have put below first an aerial view of the Ruckmans' house (it is the house on the corner and the garage/apartment building north of it where Guy lives) and a front view of the house (taken in 2010).

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and went right to the new gallery on Main Street to spend the next two days helping Prudence and Guy get things ready.

Art Gallery Prudencia: The Opening Reception

At the end of the summer, Prudence had leased her space, arranged for signage, and had the space renovated so it could be used as a gallery. In the months prior to opening, Prudence has been choosing artists to represent, contacting them to get information for her website, and arranging with them to get paintings to hang in the gallery for sale. She has also been planning the opening event, sending out invitations both private and public.

In the last week, and while we were here, she, Guy, Fred, and I have been helping her get everything hung, helping her get her books set up, designing and creating the website, arranging the other items she will be selling (books, notecards, etc.), and preparing for the Opening Reception. Here are a few pictures taken prior to the opening evening:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

By 6PM on Friday, December 8, everything was ready, the artists were present, and we were all waiting for the guests to arrive. Which they did.

I took quite a few pictures during the reception, many of which we ended up using on Prudence's gallery website. A great many of the Ruckman's friends came to the opening, as well as the artists themselves and a good many potential customers. I also made one movie, attempting to be a little artistic. I wasn't entirely pleased with the way it turned out, but you can use the player below to watch it:

At the Opening Reception for Art Gallery Prudencia (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

This was an important night for Prudence, and I wanted to take as many pictures as I could, in between my duties helping write up the five or six sales of art that occurred that evening.

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The best of the pictures I took are in the slideshow at left. They are candid shots; only in some of them was I able to get people to stop what they were doing and look at me. But they should give you a good impression of what the evening was like.

As with all the slideshows in this album, you can flip through the pictures by clicking on the little arrows in the lower corners of each slide. There are thirty-one pictures in the show, so track your progress using the index numbers in the upper left.

Many of these pictures are on the new website for Art Gallery Prudencia. If you would like to visit her site, and learn more about her new venture (and maybe pick up a really nice piece of original art), just click on the link below:

After the reception was over, a large group of us went three doors down main to Caparelli's Restaurant, where Ron Ruckman had reserved a large table upstairs in celebration of the official opening of Prudence's gallery. I took one picture of our group from each end of the table:

Openings and Birthdays

The day after the gallery opening, Prudence spent her first full day at the gallery, finalizing the opening night's sales and rearranging some of the artwork. Fred and I went to H-E-B to get her a celebratory cake, but realized that Saturday night would be the celebration of Ron's birthday as well. So we got one cake and a banner to lay across it to commemorate the gallery opening. It would serve as our dessert after we returned from the Palm Restaurant. So here are the three pictures we took back at Ruckman Haus that Saturday night as Prudence cut the cake and Ron opened his birthday gifts:

The Dual-Purpose Cake

Prudence Cuts the Cake

Ron Opens His Gifts

We had a great visit in San Antonio, and we congratulate Prudence on the opening of her art gallery.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	December 14, 2017: A Carriage Ride Through Highland Park
	November 28, 2017: Christmas Decorations at the Dallas Arboretum
	Return to the Index for 2017