Uvalde

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Bill Chance

Uvalde, by Mac Whitney, Frisco, Texas

That Can’t be Safe

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Bill Chance

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

Views from the Perot

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Bill Chance

There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.
—-Ross Perot

Taken from the Perot Museum, Dallas, Texas

Looking back towards Klyde Warren park – and the Eye of Sauron.

Entrance Plaza for the Perot Museum

Downtown Dallas

Data Flow

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Bill Chance

Some more photos I have from the amazing Dallas Aurora.

On Flora Street in front of the Nasher was a stunning, fun, and very popular installation/sculpture called Data Flow. It was made by Erik Glissmann, Scott Horn, and Nicole Cullum Horn. It was a walk-through complex of v-shaped troughs, fed by a constant flow of florescent yellow liquid and brightly lit by ultraviolet lights.

The artists describe the artwork as:

“Data Flow” reflects on the expansion of human consciousness in the digital era. For most of our history, our experiences have been limited to our immediate horizons, securing our sense of the world and our place in it. Digital technology has transformed that stability, shattering and expanding it a thousandfold – like a river divided by a thousand tiny waterfalls. Data Flow physically interprets this phenomenon; a single stream falls onto many planes, reaching its destination by a seemingly random multitude of paths.

Santa Fe Fall Pub Ride

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Bill Chance

It seems longer ago – but it was only last May that I rode a fun bike ride sponsored by the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail (my favorite bike trail in the Metroplex). Today they were doing another one… and I didn’t want to miss it.

For outdoor stuff – this is the good part of the year here in Dallas – the weather can be iffy, but at least there is a possibility of a comfortable day – unlike the killer summer heat or the bitter winter windy cold. It turned out to be almost perfect – a little overcast (but that’s OK) and the temperature flopped around from cool to warm to cool and back again… but it was nice bike ridin’ weather.

I was planning on riding my commuter bike, but at the last minute I switched to my road bike. As always, going out for a day on a bike makes for some packing decisions and I left my Nikon at home – so my only photographs are from a crappy little point-and-shoot. It’s a lot safer and easier to carry, plus I wanted to enjoy myself and not have to think about taking pictures all the time.

The transit gods were kind today and I made it downtown in plenty of time – rode over to Fair Park where the ride started at Switching Gears Cyclery. We rode through Deep Ellum to the Traveling Man Sculpture, for a quick photo op stop.

Bike Riders under the Travelling Man

Dallas Skyline and the Travelling Man’s legs

Then we wound through near East Dallas – which brought back a lot of memories of riding the Belmont #1 bus through there when I lived on Lower Greenville and worked downtown. A lot of changes to the neighborhood (most of them good). The best… really the only way to see a city is from a bicycle. Walking is too slow and a car… forget about it.

Next stop was at the Anvil Pub in Deep Ellum. I have never been there before but will be back. They have Temptress on tap… and that’s a very good thing.

Then it was on to the Deep Ellum Brewing Company – a place I have been to many times before. A great time, as always.

Bikes lined up at Deep Ellum Brewing

And then we finally hit the trail that the ride was named after. It has so much going for it – an urban hotspot (Deep Ellum with access to downtown and Fair Park) at one end – the greenery of White Rock Lake at the other, with a vibrant urban neighborhood in the middle. Plus, the highest point is in the middle, so you always finish up downhill.

We finished at The Lot – a nice place that has built a bridge over to the trail. It has been an oasis for me more than once when I was riding too much in too much heat and had to stop for refreshments and recovery.

I rode back downtown with some folks, hung out at Klyde Warren for a bit, then caught the DART train back north. The sun was setting for the trip and I was a little worn out. A good day.

Georg Herold

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Bill Chance

“I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.”
― David Bowie

Sculpture by Georg Herold, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas

“Fashion changes, but style endures.”
― Coco Chanel

Georg Herold, Dallas Contemporary
(click to enlarge)

“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.”
― Oscar Wilde

Georg Herold, Dallas Contemporary
(click to enlarge)

Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art
― Charles Bukowski

Escape Plan

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Bill Chance

In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big goddamn poster. Like I said, in prison a man will do most anything to keep his mind occupied. Turns out Andy’s favorite hobby was totin’ his wall out into the exercise yard, a handful at a time.
—-The Shawshank Redemption

The other day, after the really cool bike ride from the Dallas Contemporary, we all returned and hung out for a while, looking at the exhibits. There was some really good stuff… really good.

One special exhibit, off to one side, was Acceleration – a set from 35 artists run out to honor the 35th anniversary of the space. Walking through it, I came around a corner, looked at a sheetrock wall, and found one in particular that really spoke to me.

It was one of the coolest pieces of art/sculpture/exhibition I’ve ever seen.

A simple work by Bradly Brown, named “Escape Plan.” It was a heavy, sharp compass, mounted against the wall. An unseen force turned the compass slowly, and the sharp steel point was slowly digging its way through the wall.

“Escape Plan” by Bradly Brown, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas

The circle cut into the wall displayed a ragged edge where the spike had torn through the outer paper layer. When I looked closely, I could see that it had dug deep, almost through the drywall, and was digging deeper.’

“Escape Plan” by Bradly Brown, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas

I watched it going round and round, and talked to some other folks that walked up. I said, “it must have some sort of mechanism mounted inside the wall.”

Then, on a whim, I walked around until I reached the opposite side of the wall and was surprised when, there, I found the other end – the business end – an electric motor slowly turning a shaft that pierced the barrier – obviously turning the compass on the other side. It was set up as another part… a hidden part of the art. It would have been interesting to find the motor first – to see it moving and try to figure out what it was doing. You would never be able to guess.

The back side of “Escape Plan” by Bradly Brown, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas

I looked closely and saw that it was spring mounted – I assume pulling the mechanism through the wall… eventually.

Santa Fe Trestle

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Bill Chance

Santa Fe Trestle Trail, Dallas, Texas

Santa Fe Trestle, Dallas, Texas. Trinity River and the Dallas Wave.
(click to enlarge)

Trinity River Bottoms

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Bill Chance

Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas. Taken from the Santa Fe Trestle Trail, near the Dallas Wave.

Trinity River, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)

Dallas Contemporary Street Art Bike Tour

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Bill Chance

First, let me tell a little story. It’s a story I’ve told too many times before, and if you know me, you’ve probably heard it more than once. But if I type it out here, maybe I can get it out of the way, and quit repeating myself.

When I first moved to Dallas, in 1981, I had no money (and I have no money now… how does that work?) and lived with some friends in Oak Cliff until I saved enough to get an apartment. I rode the bus down Sylvan and then across the Trinity River on Commerce into Downtown, where I worked in the Kirby Building (now converted into condominiums). The bus would go past the Belmont Hotel every day – I think it was abandoned at the time. It was a very nasty area in those years – if you stood on that corner very long you would probably get your throat cut.

I would tell people, “That Belmont property is so cool. Someone needs to buy it and fix it up. It sits up on a hill with a great view of downtown – wonderful Dallas Art Deco architecture. It’s a shame, somebody needs to do something.”

They would reply, “You are crazy. You’ll get your throat cut down there.”

Now, thirty years later, the Belmont is restored into a cute little boutique hotel, it boasts a famous restaurant, and the area around it is booming with cool hipness. I was thirty years ahead of my time… but then again, a stopped watch is right twice a day.

Thats out of the way….

Saturday the Dallas Contemporary was celebrating their thirty-fifth anniversary and they contacted Amanda Popken of Dallas Cycle Style to set up a bike ride from their location to look at a series of murals that they had commissioned/sponsored/managed in a few different spots. This looked like a lot of fun.

I decided to ride my vintage Technium instead of my commuter bike – in my constant efforts to keep the thing working I have rebuilt the rear wheel, lacing new spokes around a new hub and cassette and truing the thing – so I wanted to give it a try. I rode my bike to the train station for the ride downtown and, as always, right after I bought my ticket for the DART train at the Arapaho station, the train pulled in. You have to cross a street through a tunnel to get to the platform, so I usually miss my train and am therefore late for whatever I have planned. This time I hauled ass down the tunnel and caught it right as it was pulling out. The transit gods smiled on me that day.

There was a good bunch of bicyclists and we headed out from the Dallas Contemporary down to Commerce and across the river to the Belmont – following the bus route I remembered from thirty years ago. Along the side of the cliff up to the hotel three murals were painted. The first by Shepard Fairey (he’s best known for the Obama poster), the second by JM Rizzi, known as JMR, and the third by local artists Sour Grapes.

Bike tour group in front of the Belmont Hotel murals.
(click to enlarge)

Shepard Fairey mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas.

Sour Grapes mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas.

Closeup of the Sour Grapes mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas.
(click to enlarge)

One really cool part of the ride was that each stop had a talk by a docent – Erin Cluley from Dallas Contemporary who talked about the process of setting up the murals and getting the artists into town and working. I was particularly interested in how the out-of-town artists adapted their work to the more conservative attitudes here and what they thought of the city in general.

Erin Cluley, the docent giving a talk on the murals in front of the Belmont Hotel

From the Belmont, we went down the street and around the corner to Trinity Groves – a very interesting area of restaurant incubation. There were more murals by Shepard Fairey and JMR, plus some work by FAILE – a pair of Brooklyn based artists that had an amazing exhibition back at the Contemporary.