Category Archives: sculpture

Non-Utilitarian Use of Materials

Posted on by Bill Chance

Sculptures are rare. It’s not as if you walk down pavements dodging sculptures, do you? Sculpture is a rare use of materials. We’re in the industrial north here, where billions of tons of material are being used to make cars, pottery, books, textiles, chemicals – but how many kilos of sculpture are made today? The non-utilitarian use of material is important.

—–Tony Cragg

Runner, Tony Cragg, The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans
Runner, Tony Cragg, The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

I have always been a fan of the sculptor Tony Cragg.

Especially his work, Stevenson, in the Dallas Museum of Art.

Tony Cragg, Stevenson, Dallas Museum of Art (click to enlarge)

… Oh, and the sculpture I discovered along the street in Dallas.

Tony Cragg’s “Line of Thought” Dallas, Texas
Tony Cragg’s “Line of Thought” Dallas, Texas

… Or the fantastic exhibition at the DMA when I was in need of uplift.

Exhibition of Cragg sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art

I was very happy to find his work, Runner, a large work in polished stainless steel, along the walkway in the new expansion of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans.

It was like stumbling across an old friend.

The Only Certainty

Posted on by Bill Chance

“My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that’s it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I’d loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Speed of Grace, from “Cities of the Men”
Robert Longo
Bronze
Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

Short Story (Flash Fiction) Of the Day, Cherry Bomb by Cate McGowan and Nic Noblique

Posted on by Bill Chance

You cherry-bombed your black-lit bedroom.

—-Cate McGowan, Cherry Bomb

Cherry Bomb, Nic Noblique, 2010, Dallas, Texas

Always nice to have a sculpture and a flash fiction piece share a name.

Read it here:

Cherry Bomb by Cate McGowan

from TSS Publishing – Excellence in Short Fiction

Cate McGowan Homepage

Cate McGowan Twitter

_____________________________

Nic Noblique Studios

Nic Noblique Twitter

 

 

Reborn

Posted on by Bill Chance

“We die a little every day and by degrees we’re reborn into different men, older men in the same clothes, with the same scars.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas

Over the years, I’ve written about the sculpture that used to sit near the Lover’s Lane DART station – 2013, Egg – then 2019, A First Crack Reaching , and finally 2019, Birth II,

I found the sculpture referenced in a book I have on Texas sculpture and discovered it was called Birth II and was by a man named Arthur Williams.

The area is being extensively redone, and the sculpture disappeared – I wrote about that too Earthly and Mechanical Paraphernalia

I figured that was it – all she wrote.

But in the last few days I have been getting comments on my Birth II blog post. The sculptor’s son messaged me to say his father was retired from sculpting and teaching after losing his studio and work in hurricane Katrina, but was still alive and doing well. That was cool

And then I received a message from a representative from the University Crossing Public Improvement District. The sculpture had been donated to the district, and is being restored. “It’s planned to be placed behind The Highland Hotel at the base of the Mockingbird bridge here in Dallas.”

There is a little piece of green space along the bike trail – I hope that is where it is placed.

That is so cool. I hope to be able to go down the the ribbon cutting.

Mockingbird Pedestrian Bridge

A Rational Fear Of Birds

Posted on by Bill Chance

“You’ll think this is a bit silly, but I’m a bit–well, I have a thing about birds.”
“What, a phobia?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, that’s the common term for an irrational fear of birds.”
“What do they call a rational fear of birds, then?”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

Spirit of Flight (detail), Charles Umlauf, Love Field, Dallas, Texas

Crikey! I’ve Lost My mojo!

Posted on by Bill Chance

Crikey! I’ve lost my mojo!

—-Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me

Micro Macro Mojo, Sculpture by Ed Carpenter, Richardson, Texas

Micro Macro Mojo

Ed Carpenter

Let Me Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity

Posted on by Bill Chance

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

—-William Shakespeare, The Third part of King Henry the Sixth

Grapevine, Texas

Constant and Unending Euphoria

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Even the memory of cradling her in my arms is pure euphoria. And all that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria.”
― Roman Payne

Back side of bronze, Grapevine, Texas

Micro Macro Mojo

Posted on by Bill Chance

“It makes me sad, sad inside, to see a warrior without his pride. ”
― Adam Ant

Micro Macro Mojo sculpture (detail), by Ed Carpenter, Greenville & Alma, Richardson, Texas

Micro Macro Mojo

Earthly and Mechanical Paraphernalia

Posted on by Bill Chance

“She glided away towards the lift, which seemed hardly needed, with its earthly and mechanical paraphernalia, to bear her up to the higher levels.”
― Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time: 3rd Movement

Sculpture being installed at the Meadows Building, Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the worst city there is as far as preserving its history, art works, and interesting architecture (such as it is). There has been a struggle over the redevelopment of the uber-cool Meadows Building. They were going to raze a historic wing just to create room to run a driveway through.

There used to be a sculpture between the building and the Lover’s Lane DART station – Birth II by Arthur Williams.

Birth II, Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas

 

All of a sudden, during the construction, it disappeared. I seem to be the only person interested in the sculpture – there is no record of where it went that I can find. I certainly hope they didn’t scrap it.

The other day, I rode my bike around the construction site as best as I could trying to see if they simply moved it somewhere obscure. I couldn’t find it – but they were putting in a new giant three part sculpture nearby.

It looked cool, but not anywhere as cool as the old Birth II.

Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas