“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn”
― The Dream Songs
Hall Arts Plaza, Dallas, Texas
I have never completely recovered from the time when I realized that the cotton in the aspirin bottle was not necessary and you did not have to replace it after you extracted your tablet – a belief that, as a child, I structured my entire world around.
“The inmates made jokes about the chair, the way people always make jokes about things that frighten them but can’t be gotten away from.”
― The Green Mile
Nic Noblique, Chair No. 3, Anita Harris Phelps Park, Dallas, Texas
There is a mathematical formula (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before) to calculate the number of bicycles you should own.
N = the number of bikes you have
X = the number of bikes you should own
X = N +1
I’m at three right now. One supposed advantage of having three bikes is that if one breaks, you have others that you can ride. This does not work, because of some divine sense of humor, all three will break at the same time.
Last weekend I wanted to ride the train and my bike down to the Design District West of Downtown Dallas for a birthday party for some of my kin at a combination Cidery and Video Game Extravaganza. The tire blew out on my folder the day before and the front wheel on my “road” bike needed truing.
No problem, I’d ride my Commuter/Cargo bike (a converted mountain bike with front and rear racks and fenders) – it weighs a ton, but is comfortable and works well as long as I’m not in a hurry. I took it out and started riding to the train station. I noticed that I was having a bit of trouble pedaling and stopped to take a look. The shift cable housing for the rear derailleur had come apart to pieces and the chain was stuck in high gear.
For a minute I thought about quitting, but really wanted to go for the ride. I have a toolkit that I carry and with a few minutes of work, I had the chain on a more manageable middle gear. I couldn’t shift, but I could move. The route to the Design District was mostly downhill… the only steep uphills I would have would be on the way back. I’d worry about that later.
The commuter tracks in downtown are being replaced, so I was spit out by the train at the east end of the central city. I used Google Maps to find a route through uptown to the American Airlines Center and on under Interstate 35 to the Design District. That’s were I found the nice little unexpected pocket park with the three Nic Noblique sculpture. It was a welcome peaceful spot to rest in the middle of the crazy city.
The trip back was mostly uneventful – without my low gears I did have to walk the bike in two spots – but I have no pride, so that was OK.
When I caught the train (the Blue Line this time) back to Richardson via Garland two women with five kids, including an infant in a stroller, tumbled on and took some seats in front of me. The kids were really hyped up and the women yelled at them constantly. At the Mockingbird station, one of the women suddenly shouted, “This is our stop!”
They herded the kids to the door where the four of them ran out the egress. The two women were maneuvering the stroller around when the door suddenly shut and the train started off. They were still aboard the train and the kids were on the platform. The two women panicked.
“Call the driver, push the red button,” another woman on the train said.
“We need to go back!” they said.
The voice in the metal grill was riddled with static, “This is a train lady, it doesn’t go back.”
I figured I needed to help. “Get off at the next stop, White Rock, and then take the next train back. You’ll be there in twenty minutes. Does your oldest kid have a phone?”
“My battery is dead.”
“Use mine, call him.”
She told the kids to wait on the platform. Then I called the emergency number and asked the police to watch the kids.
“What train do I take back? We’re not from here!” – she was still on the edge of panic.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “There’s only one train on this line – it goes back there.” When we pulled into White Rock another woman made sure they crossed the tracks to catch the train going back the other way. I looked up at the display and one would be there in ten minutes – so I’m sure it was fine.
It was only four miles from the Garland Jupiter station to my house – a lot of spring parties were going on in the yards on that route, I rode through clouds of bar-b-que smoke the whole way. It was nice.
“All over the world there must be people like us, Anna had said then, wounded in some way by falling in love – seemingly the most natural of acts.”
― Divisadero
Nic Noblique, Wounded, Anita Harris Phelps Park, Dallas, Texas
The second of three Nic Noblique sculptures in a little pocket park amidst the construction of luxury high-rise apartment towers in Uptown, Dallas.
Nic Noblique, Cherry Bomb, Anita Harris Phelps Park, Dallas, Texas
“It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think yours is the only path.”
― By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Paths, 2014, by Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, Hall Sculpture Collection, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
Yeah, I know I’ve used a very similar photo before (and not very long ago) – but I’m working on a new processing process with new (all open source) software and thought I’d give it another go.
“You wake from dreams of doom and–for a moment–you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love’s calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn.”
― Markings
Paths (detail), by Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
“The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.”
― I Sonetti Di Michelangelo: The 78 Sonnets of Michelangelo with Verse Translation
Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
Twice over the last decades (2013, and 2019) I have stopped at the Lover’s Lane Red Line DART station to photograph the sculpture there. It’s really cool looking, and hard to find – I imagine it was once more obvious, but the construction of the DART station and the expansion of Central Expressway cut it off. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a plaque or other sign and had no idea who the sculpture was done by or what its name was. It seems to have been neglected over the years, it is getting a bit ragged looking.
Finally, I dug out a book I bought used a long time ago and have found very useful: A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture In Texas by Carol Morris Little. The sculptures are listed by the name of their sculptors (which I did not know) so it took a bit of page-turning, but I found it.
From the book:
Arthur Williams
American, born 1942Birth II 1983
Abstract, 7′ x 15′ x7′ 8″ ; welded and pressed steel
Location: 6688 North Central Expressway
Funding: Sullivan CorporationComments: Sculpture by Arthur Williams appears in public and private collections throughout the United States. In addition to large steel and cast-bronze sculptures, Williams carves alabaster, marble, and wood. This work and his monumental installation in Galveston are from his Birth series.
It’s cool to finally know something about this sculpture – will have to look for its twin the next time I’m in Galveston.
Birth II, Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
Once he sat all day staring at a single white dodo’s egg in a grass hummock. The place was too remote for any foraging pig to’ve found. He waited for scratching, a first crack reaching to net the chalk surface: an emergence. Hemp gripped in the teeth of the steel snake, ready to be lit, ready to descend, sun to black-powder sea, and destroy the infant, egg of light into egg of darkness, within its first minute of amazed vision, of wet down stirred cool by these southeast trades…. Each hour he sighted down the barrel. It was then, if ever, he might have seen how the weapon made an axis potent as Earth’s own between himself and this victim, still one, inside the egg, with the ancestral chain, not to be broken out for more than its blink of world’s light. There they were, the silent egg and the crazy Dutchman, and the hookgun that linked them forever, framed, brilliantly motionless as any Vermeer. Only the sun moved: from zenith down at last behind the snaggleteeth of mountains to Indian ocean, to tarry night.
The egg, without a quiver, still unhatched.
—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
One of my favorite sculptures in Dallas is in the Energy Square development, right next to the Lover’s Lane DART station. I took some photos of it years ago, but was in the area this weekend with a different camera and thought I’d grab a shot or two. The area is under (re)development and the sculpture is looking a bit more ragged than it did six years ago. I hope somebody cares enough to fix things up.
I have not been able to find any information about this sculpture – though I’ve misplaced my reference book on Dallas sculptures – it might be in there. I’ll update the post if I find anything out.
There is neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music, nor poetry. The only truth is creation.
—-Umberto Boccioni
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, by Umberto Boccioni, Cole and Blackburn, Dallas, Texas
I like sculpture. Though I am not picky – I especially like a certain flavor of sculpture. I don’t know what it is called, but I know it when I see it – modern, yet semi-representational, it has to have a certain strength and a feeling of movement.
One example is The Drummer in The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Museum of Art.
The Drummer, Michael Sandle
Another is, arguably my favorite sculpture, Large Horse, by Duchamp-Villion.
Large Horse by Raymond Duchamp-Villon
So, that is not the only thing I like, but it is something that I always like.
One day, a while back, I was on a bike ride from downtown through Uptown, Dallas. I was with a fairly large group, riding downhill, riding fast, when out of the corner of my eye I caught an unexpected glimpse of a sculpture. A sculpture I liked. In a flash, it was gone. I didn’t even remember the street I was on – only the general part of town I was in. It took a long session of exploring with Google Maps until I found the sculpture at the corner of Blackburn and Cole.
Today I had to drive Nick down into Uptown to pick up his car and on the way out I stopped and took a couple of photographs. Then I had a web search to find the sculpture – it’s a famous one, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni. It’s a Futurist sculpture – with a well-known version in The Museum of Art, New York.
From the museum website:
Umberto Boccioni
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
1913 (cast 1931)Boccioni, who sought to infuse art with dynamism and energy, exclaimed, “Let us fling open the figure and let it incorporate within itself whatever may surround it.” Breaking with the tradition of self-contained sculpture, Boccioni opens up the silhouette of this marching figure, who forges ahead as if carved by forces such as wind and speed. While born of Futurist aspirations, it also remains evocative of an ancient statue: the wind-swept, striding Victory of Samothrace in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
I have no idea how this cast (or reproduction) came to be placed in front of a high-end apartment complex in Uptown, Dallas. It’s cool, though I seem to be the only person aware of it.
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, by Umberto Boccioni, Cole and Blackburn, Dallas, Texas
“Well we’re waiting here in Allentown,
For the Pennsylvania we never found,
For the promises our teachers gave,
If we worked hard,
If we behaved…
So the graduations hang on the wall,
But they never really helped us at all,
No they never taught us what was real,
Iron and coke,
And chromium steel,
And we’re waiting here in Allentown…
But they’ve taken all the coal from the ground,
And the union people crawled away…”
― Billy Joel
‘Tatlin’s Sentinel’ by John Henry, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 