The Dallas Wave from the Santa Fe Trestle Trail
Dallas Wave
(click to enlarge)
Dallas Wave
Tag Archives: Dallas
The Dallas Eye
In downtown Dallas, across Main Street from the Joule Hotel – the hotel with the cool pool, a giant eye has appeared – like a monster from a horror movie – mysterious – it just sits there, thirty feet high… staring. The thing is a sculpture by Tony Tasset. It really is big… and pretty odd to look at – especially at night.
Giant Eye Sculpture, Main Street, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)
Giant Eye Sculpture, Main Street, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)
GMO OMG WTF
I still have some photographs left over from Aurora. An amazing thing.
North Texas Light Brigade – in front of the Symphony Hall.
Aurora 2013, Dallas, Texas
Aurora 2013, Dallas, Texas
Carrollton Collages
To get to the Carrollton Festival at the Switchyard I rode my bike to the Arapaho Red Line DART station – hung my bike on the transit hook and rode downtown (as always, I was a minute late, missed my train, and was twenty minutes late downtown – I need to cut that crap out), met a friend, and we then rode the Green line out to Carrollton. It would have been quicker to drive my car down Beltline (to get anywhere in Dallas you start out driving down Beltline Road) – but then I would have had to find a place to park, plus there is a lot of freedom and flexibility in having a bicycle. With a bicycle and a DART pass – I can go anywhere.
At any rate, heading back downtown, waiting for the train, I had the time to look around at the artwork on the Carrollton station. To my uneducated, ignorant, and untrained eye, DART has done an admirable job of adding artwork to its train stations – at least as far as a giant government bureaucracy can be expected to go. Maybe I should do some blog entries on some of my favorites….
At the Carrollton station – elevated high in the air (cool view from up there) over where I suppose the old switching yard might have been, I noticed all these little windows cut into the concrete pillars supporting the roof structure. In each window was an old photograph combined with, or framed by, pieces of found metal. It made for a series of interesting and entertaining collages. The time spent waiting for the train was reduced by me dashing up and down, looking into the little windows at the parade of aged faces and arranged fragments of history.
Later, at home, an internet search led me quickly to the artist, James Michael Starr. Although, he seems to be unhappy with the initial installation – everything seems to have worked out and his collages are there for the enjoyment of the unwashed masses. The bits of metal seem to be mostly artifacts that the artist was able to dig up around the area, now on display, high in the air… forever waiting for the next train.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
SWAT
Top of a SWAT assault vehicle – on display at the Carrollton Festival at the Switchyard.
SWAT assault vehicle, Carrollton, Texas
(Click to Enlarge)
Bethan
Thursday, at the last Patio Sessions of the season, warming up for Home by Hovercraft, was a local group, Bethan (facebook). They were very good and very mellow.
The sun had set behind the giant buildings, but a bit of light was still filtering through – so I was able to get some better photos of them.
Bethan, Patio Sessions, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
Bethan, Patio Sessions, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
Bethan, Patio Sessions, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
Hovercraft Halloween
Last Thursday, Halloween, was the last Patio Sessions of the season. These are really nice little free concerts held down in the Dallas Arts District – I’ve been going to as many of these as I can. It’s tough to get down there on time after work, but I rush out and grab a train and usually get there with no problems.
I had circled this one on the calendar because Home by Hovercraft was performing. I am a big fan – have seen them in Klyde Warren Park and in Deep Ellum and enjoyed their theatrical performances, music that doesn’t really fit into any genre that I’m aware of. Their concerts will be on hold for a bit as they prepare for another run of their musical, On The Eve, this time at Theater Three (I am really looking forward to this).
In Halloween style, they were in costume, as were more than a few of the folks present. By the end of the concert, there was a clot of folks decked out in bizarre outfits dancing along the edge of the reflecting pool (sorry, no photos – it was too dark by then). Pretty surreal and a lot of fun.
Home by Hovercraft, at the ATT Patio Sessions, Dallas, Texas
Home by Hovercraft, at the ATT Patio Sessions, Dallas, Texas
Best step-dancing, xylophone playing horse I’ve seen in awhile.
Home by Hovercraft, at the ATT Patio Sessions, Dallas, Texas
My Curves Are Not Mad
The vertical is in my spirit. It helps me to define precisely the direction of lines, and in quick sketches I never indicate a curve, that of a branch in landscape for example, without being aware of its relationship to the vertical.
My curves are not mad.La verticale est dans mon esprit. Elle m’aide à préciser la direction des lignes, et dans mes dessins rapides je n’indique pas une courbe, par exemple, celle d’une branche dans un paysage, sans avoir conscience de son rapport avec la verticale.
Mes courbes ne sont pas folles.
—-Henri Matisse from Jazz
Boy looking at his shadow on Richard Serra’s My Curves Are Not Mad – Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas
Walking around Nasher garden, I spotted this child walking up to Richard Serra’s massive Cor-Ten walk-through sculpture, My Curves Are Not Mad – he stopped and stared at his shadow on the steel. I barely had time to raise my camera and squeeze off this shot.
Earlier in the day, we had listened to a discussion of public art and the way it relates to the current Nasher Xchange exhibition that is taking place in various public locations all over the city of Dallas. A lot of the discussion touched on the controversy over Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc and how the public’s attitude toward public sculpture has changed in the time since that disaster. It was a very interesting discussion.
Everybody seems to like My Curves Are Not Mad – but then again, it wasn’t installed by the government.
And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn’t mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public.
—-Richard Serra
Skyscraper and Clouds
“What about guns with sensors in the handles that could detect if you were angry, and if you were, they wouldn’t fire, even if you were a police officer?
What about skyscrapers made with moving parts, so they could rearrange themselves when they had to, and even open holes in their middles for planes to fly through?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Downtown Dallas, Texas
“Aren’t the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton… I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by… If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations… What do you think you see, Linus?”
“Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean… That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor… And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen… I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side…”
“Uh huh… That’s very good… What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?”
“Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!”
― Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts
Fractured and Faceted Facade
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Downtown Dallas
Bill Chance 