Sculpture outside Plaza of the Americas
Dallas, Texas
Plaza of the Americas
Pearl Street
Dallas, Texas
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
“I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
Northpark
Dallas, Texas
“Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.”
― Lao Tzu
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
“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
“Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
Dallas Museum of Art
“Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.”
― Lao Tzu
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
I never get tired of walking around in an art museum, especially one that I am very familiar with, looking for beauty in odd corners and hidden spots.
Sun God (Helios), Donald DeLue
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
From the Label Text:
Donald DeLue
American, 1897-1988Sun God (Helios), 1937
Patinated plaster
Gift of the Estate of Donald DeLue, 1997.20A radiant crown of bright sunbeams draws our eyes toward the fierce gaze of the handsome, beardless Sun God, Helios. The ancient poet Homer described how the mighty titan Helios “shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he gazes with his eyes from his goldne helmet. Bright rays beam dazzingly from him, and his bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face.”
Donald DeLue translated Homer’s verse into sculptural form using a theme that appealed to his lifelong fascination with ancient Greek and Roman mythology. This figure is one of the artist’s most beautiful early sculptures. It marks a turning point in DeLue’s working method, as it is the last one that he modeled in French clay and cast in plaster himself. The final bronze version of Sun God (Helios) was DeLue’s first publicly exhibited sculpture.
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas
The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.
—–Henry Moore
One featured stop in the DART to Art Rail & Ride that a friend of mine organized a few weeks ago was the Bowler Hat sculpture in the Cedars – just across I30 south of downtown Dallas. I had originally planned to swing by there during my Stop and Shoot the Roses ride earlier – but had to cut it due to length of ride.
Bowler Hat Sculpture in the Cedars, Dallas, Texas
The Bowler Hat was originally commissioned by British upscale furniture purveyor, Timothy Oulton, to grace his new store being opened in Dallas.
Local artist Keith Turman built the thing. He and Keith Scherbarth used a 3d scanner on a real bowler hat to get the shape and curves just right. Then his team set to work with steel, wood, fiberglass, and foam, building up, carving down, shaping, and smoothing until, after six months of sweat, he had a twenty-foot wide, ten foot tall hat.
Unfortunately, like the dancing frogs decades ago, the hat fell victim to Dallas’ draconian sign ordinance and it was never able to make it to the top of the furniture store.
The hat sat unloved and unknown in a warehouse for a long time. Finally, not long before it was slated for destruction, Doug Caudill, owner of the studio the hat was built in, suggested that the hat be donated to the Cedars Community as a piece of public art. Structural Studio provided a very visible location, KNK Concrete Express provided the foundation, and Tony Collins Art built the metal stand the hat sits on.
And now, thanks to many people from an upscale British furniture store to a Texas concrete company – and many in between, there is a cool piece of public art along I30 south of downtown Dallas. Pull off to look at it though, that curve is a doozy.
Bill Chance 