Art is a Stone's Throw Away

Along the fence line at the Museum's entrance, fourteen artist-made stones lead visitors in. Each one was made by a different SAAL+M artist and set in place on November 23, 2025, marking the entrance before visitors even reach the gate.

The project was originated and coordinated by Ilna Colemere, who described how it began: "How might we honor the many individuals whose generosity of time, talent, and spirit has sustained the San Antonio Art League + Museum? ... Stone felt inevitable: timeless, humble, and strong."

The Stones

Andre Bally — Lunar Eclipse

Co-founder of Bally Studios, working across ceramics, glass, paper, and metal for over

forty years, drawing on Japanese and North American Indigenous design traditions.

Virginia Bally — Let the Sunshine In

Co-founder of Bally Studios; her ceramic work has been shown in private collections

across Canada, Europe, North Africa, and the United States.

Lyn Belisle — Wonder

"My work begins with fragments — shards of images, found objects, traces of memory

— that, when assembled, form new narratives." The child's gaze in the piece, she says,

"becomes a vessel for human curiosity."

Elaine Bornemeier — Sister on Purple Chair

Acrylic portraits of women from around the world, painted from a simple belief: "All

women in this world are sisters."

Ilna Colemere — Threshold of the Sea

An abstraction that started as a floral and became a seascape instead. "This stone be-

came a meditation on that balance — the sea as both threshold and refuge."

Billy L. Keen — Shamanic Echoes

Inspired by Southwest petroglyphs dating back to 3500 BCE. "I don't know what most

rock art means, yet I'm inspired by its power and beauty."

Claudia Langford — Art is in Our DNA

A tongue-in-cheek recreation of cave art, modeled on photos she took at a protected

petroglyph site in California — "an acknowledgement of the artistic drive that is part of

the human condition."

Terry Gay Puckett — El Paisano

A roadrunner, her family's favorite bird. A member since age 27, she writes that the

bird's resourcefulness reminds her "of all who volunteer together for the greater artis-

tic outcome."

Patsy Sasek — Timeless Treasures of Big Bend

El Capitan peak in bloom with century-old agave, ocotillo, and bluebonnets — inspired

by the honeymoon she and her husband spent in Big Bend National Park over 30

years ago.

Steven Smith — A Walk in Provence

A landscape built from a photograph taken in the South of France. "In my landscapes I

hope to convey a 'sense of place' for the viewers."

Stefani Job Spears — Journey

2A pointillist piece in acrylic, its layered dots meant to echo the Fibonacci sequences

found throughout nature.

Dr. Mary Beth Swofford — Soldaderas

Explores women's roles in political and social life through the metaphor of the veil —

"the glimpse inside women's hidden power."

Peter Szarmach — Big Tree

A nature photograph rooted in studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Among

nature, I find a meditative state and try to capture the vastness and the details that cre-

ate visual awe."

Dona LeCrone Walston — Glass Mosaic

A fused-glass piece that includes two blue glass fragments gifted by the late Pam Fer-

guson, used in her hanging wind chimes. "I included them in memory of her. She is

missed."

With Gratitude

Thanks also to Kenneth E. Colemere (stone cutting), Marc Eisenberg (installation),

David Moran and Nancy Campbell (photography), Peter Szarmach and Nancy Wood

(marketing), Dr. Angela Wright (Texas Strings), and Phillip Briseño of Home Depot,

who donated the stones.