We fall into more vivid art colors this November, as galleries and museums across Houston open a diverse array of shows and exhibitions. The Museum of Fine Arts keeps the art blockbusters coming with a rare Gauguin exhibition. The Contemporary Arts Museum celebrates a Texas original, while the Center for Contemporary Craft celebrates motherhood. Discovery Green and Artechouse get ready for the holidays. Plus, we’ve got some of our favorite annual art buying and exploring traditions this month.

"Celebrations of Spirits: Encore” at Sabine Street Studios (now through January 12)
Artists of both Sabine Street and Spring Street Studios continue to contemplate Day of the Dead with this new show that not only gives honor to those departed but attempts to set up a painted dialogue between the living and the dead. The art featured in the show invites viewers to contemplate the many meanings of the holiday and the possibilities of feelings of both grief and joy when remembering our connections to those departed.

"WOW: Wonders of Winter" at Sawyer Yards (now through January 11)
The artists of Winter Street Studios embrace alliteration in this exhibition that contemplates wonder as an emotion. Each piece evokes emotions of surprise and curiosity, encouraging visitors to see beyond the canvas into the minds and inspirations of the creators. All together the show highlights a diverse selection of artists and artworks that feature techniques that elicit a "wow" moment in the art and perhaps the viewer, as well.

"Gauguin in the World” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through February 16)
Certainly one of the biggest exhibitions of the fall, the MFAH is the only museum in the U.S to present this monumental survey of pioneering Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin’s work. Originally organized by independent curator Henri Loyrette, former director of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the exhibition includes some of Gauguin’s most celebrated paintings, prints, and ceramics with this Houston presentation including some works not shown during the exhibition’s debut in Australia.

“Gauguin in the World will offer an exceptional opportunity to understand the astonishing range of the artist’s achievement,” said Ann Dumas, MFAH consulting curator for the exhibition. “Fusing influences as diverse as European Old Masters, Peruvian potters, and Egyptian tomb painters, Gauguin created not only sumptuous and richly colored paintings, but also developed entirely original methods of print making, and sculptures in wood and ceramic, dissolving conventional boundaries between art forms. His influence on avant-garde has been profound and continues in our own time.”

"Designing Motherhood” at Center for Contemporary Craft (now through March 15)
Billed as the first exhibition of its kind to consider the arc of human reproduction through a design lens, this new show at HCCC looks at the art of motherhood in a showcase of over 60 craft and design objects and prototypes from the past 50 years. From blown-glass weaning vessels and hand carved rocking chairs to art and jewelry inspired by pacifiers and breast pumps, the exhibition, which includes work by more than 20 contemporary artists, explores themes and concepts of reproduction, maternal health, and motherhood.

“Handcrafted objects are the intermediary space between the womb and the world. From handwoven swaddling cloths and knitted baby blankets to embroidered baby carriers and basket-woven bassinets, craft is often the first human experience of the material world,” said HCCC curator Sarah Darro in a statement. “[The show] draws out the intertwined properties of labor, care, embedded history, material intelligence, and intergenerational knowledge shared by craft and parenthood, ultimately asserting such reproductive experiences as forms of craft themselves.”

“In Residence: 17th" at Center for Contemporary Craft (now through June 21)
This annual exhibition celebrates the Center’s Artist Residency Program, which supports emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media and allows HCCC visitors the chance to visit the artists' studios and watch their creation process through the year. Now Houston will get a chance to see some of the culminations of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, paper, and found objects by 2023-2024 resident artists Robert Hodge, Ann Johnson, Sarah Knight, Hai-Wen Lin, Qiqing Lin, Rebecca Padilla-Pipkin, and Terumi Saito.

“Atlas” at Discovery Green (November 15-February 16)
Really, it wouldn’t be fall without a new large-scale art installation at Discovery Green to light up those long nights, and this latest by internationally renowned, Brooklyn-based artist/engineer Jen Lewin flies into downtown Houston just in time for the holidays. This site-specific monumental installation interacts with both the Discovery Green landscape and park visitors , as “Atlas” consists of twenty-four handcrafted glowing moths that will be suspended from the magnificent trees of the Brown Promenade. Each moth represents a unique endangered North American moth species and will react to viewers as they move below. “Atlas” becomes the first installation integrated into Discovery Green’s new Art Lab program.

“Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream…” at Contemporary Arts Museum (November 15-March 23)
Celebrated San Antonio-born artist Vincent Valdez will have his first museum survey with this exhibition that will also mark the first time the CAMH has dedicated all its galleries to a single artist. In his murals, monumental portraits, paintings, prints, and multimedia installations, Valdez depicts visions of American’s past, sometimes forgotten, while celebrating everyday people today. As a survey spanning 25 years of Valdez’s art, the CAMH uses the analogy that the exhibition will act like chapters in a book of Valdez’ continuing examination the country.

“Valdez’s creative practice has the uncanny ability to speak to our present moment despite the years, and even decades, since the works’ creation. Yet, its relevance extends beyond this slice of time by excavating buried facets of our country’s past to incite avenues for more equitable futures,” said exhibition co-curator Patricia Restrepo.

Art on the Avenue at Spring Street Studios (November 16)
One of Houston's favorite art buying traditions goes through a few changes this year with a new venue and a one-night-only mega party and auction. Moving to the big Spring Street facilities, the silent auction will feature 100 pieces of art, as well as an additional selection of handcrafted jewelry, a student show, and a “yard sale” of non-art items and experiences to bid on. Those who can’t make the '90s-themed evening “House Party” can still view the art earlier in the day and bid online.

"rest, raze, cullect” at Lawndale Art Center (November 21-December 21)
Texas-based artist, Ariel Wood makes objects and structures evoking plumbing and drainage to explore larger issues of the body, intimacy, privacy, and hygiene. This new show will bring together three interconnected bodies of Wood’s work and transplant objects of city infrastructure into the galleries of Lawndale. As part of Wood’s process, street corner utility boxes become shower stalls and water towers. Water main access pipes stretch upwards like pillars, and lamp posts, pipes, and vessels rest in their steel holds, face and connect the walls, or drop in blue, acrylic suspension from the ceiling.

"in a word” at Lawndale Art Center (November 21-December 21)
Houston artist Jean Shon uses images and text from her own family archives to explore loss and regeneration in this new exhibition. Working in photography, installation, text, and mixed media, Shon examines themes of origin, reproduction, erasure, and revelation. Shon sees “in a word” as a dialogue that evolves despite the lack of a living presence; rather, that presence is found and transformed through memories, ideas, oral stories, and conversation.

“Houston Holiday Spectacular” at Artechouse (November 22-January 5)
When the art and technology wonderland Artechouse opened in June, chief creative officer Sandro Kereselidze told CultureMap that they had plans to continually program new installations and exhibitions throughout the year. Now comes word that they’ll be expanding new art boundaries with two new seasonal installations where light and sound deliver visitors into the holiday season.

First, enter a “Spectacular Factory” to experience the dazzling imaginary world of a gift factory as it comes alive. Visitors will get swept away by dreamlike-yet-familiar holiday themes. If the holidays are already getting a little too overwhelming, you can soothe those frazzled senses with ASMR-inspired installations in “Tingle Bells.” Calling these installations a celebratory retreat for the mind, body, and soul, Artechouse wants to take visitors on a journey of nostalgia and joy, creating an oasis amidst the hustle of the holidays.

“ArtCrawl” presented by Houston Downtown Artist Warehouse District (November 23)
This beloved November tradition turns 32 years young this month, as dedicated art-lovers head out on a pre-Thanksgiving adventure to meet local artists in their native downtown habitat. The studio doors swing open allowing visitors to see the artists’ latest creations and maybe get some holiday shopping done at the same time. The mission of the Artcrawl is to assist the public in understanding contemporary art by directly involving the visitors in a dialogue with local artists in the Artist Warehouse District of Downtown Houston. Over 100 Artists will open their studios in Houston’s original cluster of artists warehouses including Bisong Art Gallery, Hardy & Nance Studios, MotherDogStudios. And now with Meow Wolf’s Radio Tave less than a mile away, art survives and continues to thrive in the downtown warehouse district.

Brenda Bunten-Schloesser

Sawyer Yards presents "WOW: Wonders of Winter."