Life Demands Both Ends
“BEAUTY IN THE BECOMING” 4FT X 4FT (close up)
GUEST ARTIST SOLO EXHIBITION
The Pencil Works by Conceptual Artist Alisa Weldon
Washington Gallery WACO, TEXAS | OCT 8th - NOV 14th, 2026
Artist Reception OCT 24th 3PM-6PM (Artist Talk @ 5PM)
LIFE DEMANDS BOTH ENDS, explores the pencil as a metaphor for life and the human experience.
Simple, familiar, and nearly universal, the pencil carries within it the same contradictions we encounter in life: the desire to make our mark and the need to change our minds. One end to dream; the other to start again. Between them exists everything else: the pressure, the possibility, and the marks we choose to leave behind.
Through painting, sculpture, assemblage, mixed media, and conceptual works, Weldon transforms the pencil from an everyday object into a language for examining ambition, identity, failure, joy, loss, resilience, faith, and personal growth.
A pencil begins full of possibility. It must be sharpened to become useful. It becomes shorter through experience. Its point can break under pressure. Its eraser carries evidence of decisions reconsidered. Yet even after something has been erased, a trace often remains.
So it is with us.
At the center of the exhibition is Weldon’s ongoing philosophy, “Life Demands Both Ends.” The phrase proposes that a meaningful life requires both ends: the courage to start and the grace to erase.
The works invite viewers to recognize themselves in an object they have held since childhood—and to consider their own unfinished story.
More than 58 works were created for this SOLO EXHIBITION. Owner Alan Scott will curate the works for his walls.