Tag Archives: horse

If You Believe In Me, I’ll Believe In You

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn. “Is it alive?”
“It can talk,” said Haigha, solemnly.
The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said, “Talk, child.”
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!”
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Winged Unicorn, Grapevine, Texas

And Then Retreated Into Their Money Or Their Vast Carelessness

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Polo Sculpture Plano, Texas

Polo Sculpture
Plano, Texas

All After Led To Nowhere At All

Posted on by Bill Chance

“He saw very clearly how all his life led only to this moment and all after led to nowhere at all. He felt something cold and soulless enter him like another being and he imagined that it smiled malignly and he had no reason to believe that it would ever leave.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Plano, Texas

Plano, Texas

Real Horses Move So Much Better

Posted on by Bill Chance

My work is not so overtly about movement. My horses’ gestures are really quite quiet, because real horses move so much better than I could pretend to make things move. For the pieces I make, the gesture is really more within the body, it’s like an internalized gesture, which is more about the content, the state of mind or of being at a given instant. And so it’s more like a painting…the gesture and the movement is all pretty much contained within the body.
—-Deborah Butterfield

Hina, Deborah Butterfield Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Hina,
Deborah Butterfield
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Another Metal Fly

Posted on by Bill Chance

A while back, I posted a photo of a bronze fly on one of the sculptures in Pioneer Plaza – a little detail that has always held an odd fascination for me.

Today, waiting for a train at the downtown Plano DART station I took a look at a cool little horse sculpture – sort of a steampunk steed. I was impressed to find that it too was being harassed by flies – two of them, as a matter of fact.

The sculpture, by Tom Askman, is named Iron Horse, in honor of the historical trains that have plied the spot. So I guess these two are Iron Flies.

Well, except that the sculpture, although it is called “Iron Horse” – is actually made of cast bronze. So I guess there are still bronze flies.

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman
Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman
Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman
Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman Plano, Texas

Iron Horse, by Tom Askman
Plano, Texas

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk

Posted on by Bill Chance

“They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Pioneer Plaza
Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Faile in Exposition Park

Posted on by Bill Chance
Mural by Faile, Exposition Park area, Dallas, Texas

Mural by Faile, Exposition Park area, Dallas, Texas
(Click to Enlarge)

The mural was decorated by non-hazardous waste drums.

The mural was decorated by non-hazardous waste drums.

As I was setting up the route for the Stop and Photograph the Roses bike ride I made a point to have the ride go by a couple of murals in the no-man’s land of Exposition Park between Fair Park, Deep Ellum, and the Farmer’s Market. One was a Marilyn Monroe by Frank Campagna and the other was a work by a pair of Brooklyn artists that go by the name Faile.

I had seen their mural work in Trinity Groves last year on the Dallas Contemporary bike ride. They had been commissioned to do this one on the other side of the city.

It’s interesting because it is a completely different style and feel from what I had seen before. This is a very realistic scene of a cowgirl and her pony taking a nap. I really like it.
Someone on the ride pointed out that the woman’s mask is sitting on the ground beside her horse.

FAILE mural at Trinity Groves.

FAILE mural at Trinity Groves.

FAILE uses the year 1986 in their work - the year of the Challenger Disaster.

FAILE uses the year 1986 in their work – the year of the Challenger Disaster.

Rider

Posted on by Bill Chance

“What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them.”
—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Shawnee Trail Sculpture, Central Park, Frisco Texas, bronze by Anita Pauwels

“But there were two things they agreed upon wholly and that were never spoken and that was that God had put horses on earth to work cattle and that other than cattle there was no wealth proper to a man.”
—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Shawnee Trail, by Anita Pauwels, Frisco, Texas

Shawnee Trail, by Anita Pauwels, Frisco, Texas

“He found he was breathing in rhythm with the horse as if some part of the horse were within him breathing and then he descended into some deeper collusion for which he had not even a name.”

“…and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying in their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. Finally what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse’s heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it.”

“He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.”

—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses