Tag Archives: Sculpture

Non-Utilitarian Use of Materials

Posted on by Bill Chance

Sculptures are rare. It’s not as if you walk down pavements dodging sculptures, do you? Sculpture is a rare use of materials. We’re in the industrial north here, where billions of tons of material are being used to make cars, pottery, books, textiles, chemicals – but how many kilos of sculpture are made today? The non-utilitarian use of material is important.

—–Tony Cragg

Runner, Tony Cragg, The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans
Runner, Tony Cragg, The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

I have always been a fan of the sculptor Tony Cragg.

Especially his work, Stevenson, in the Dallas Museum of Art.

Tony Cragg, Stevenson, Dallas Museum of Art (click to enlarge)

… Oh, and the sculpture I discovered along the street in Dallas.

Tony Cragg’s “Line of Thought” Dallas, Texas
Tony Cragg’s “Line of Thought” Dallas, Texas

… Or the fantastic exhibition at the DMA when I was in need of uplift.

Exhibition of Cragg sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art

I was very happy to find his work, Runner, a large work in polished stainless steel, along the walkway in the new expansion of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans.

It was like stumbling across an old friend.

The Only Certainty

Posted on by Bill Chance

“My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that’s it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I’d loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Speed of Grace, from “Cities of the Men”
Robert Longo
Bronze
Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

Organized Lightning

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Electricity is really just organized lightning”

― George Carlin

Golden Boy, in AT&T Plaza, Dallas, Texas

I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.

Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.

Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.

See y’all on the back side.

Golden Boy, Outside

Posted on by Bill Chance

““Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”

― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions

Golden Boy, AT&T Plaza, Dallas, Texas

I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.

Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.

Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.

See y’all on the back side.

I’ve written about this sculpture before – Golden Boy.

It was originally on top of a skyscraper in New York.

Golden Boy in New York City
There is another famous statue in the distance.

Then, during the turbulent history of corporate America – it ended up inside AT&T Headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It was hard to get a good look at it.

The view of the statue from AT&T Plaza through the entryway.

But now, that the company has upgraded the plaza in front of the building, Golden Boy is now outside, in all his glory.

He Who Conquers

Posted on by Bill Chance

“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”

― Confucius

Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas

I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.

Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.

Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.

See y’all on the back side.

Short Story (Flash Fiction) Of the Day, Cherry Bomb by Cate McGowan and Nic Noblique

Posted on by Bill Chance

You cherry-bombed your black-lit bedroom.

—-Cate McGowan, Cherry Bomb

Cherry Bomb, Nic Noblique, 2010, Dallas, Texas

Always nice to have a sculpture and a flash fiction piece share a name.

Read it here:

Cherry Bomb by Cate McGowan

from TSS Publishing – Excellence in Short Fiction

Cate McGowan Homepage

Cate McGowan Twitter

_____________________________

Nic Noblique Studios

Nic Noblique Twitter

 

 

Reborn

Posted on by Bill Chance

“We die a little every day and by degrees we’re reborn into different men, older men in the same clothes, with the same scars.”
― Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns

Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas

Over the years, I’ve written about the sculpture that used to sit near the Lover’s Lane DART station – 2013, Egg – then 2019, A First Crack Reaching , and finally 2019, Birth II,

I found the sculpture referenced in a book I have on Texas sculpture and discovered it was called Birth II and was by a man named Arthur Williams.

The area is being extensively redone, and the sculpture disappeared – I wrote about that too Earthly and Mechanical Paraphernalia

I figured that was it – all she wrote.

But in the last few days I have been getting comments on my Birth II blog post. The sculptor’s son messaged me to say his father was retired from sculpting and teaching after losing his studio and work in hurricane Katrina, but was still alive and doing well. That was cool

And then I received a message from a representative from the University Crossing Public Improvement District. The sculpture had been donated to the district, and is being restored. “It’s planned to be placed behind The Highland Hotel at the base of the Mockingbird bridge here in Dallas.”

There is a little piece of green space along the bike trail – I hope that is where it is placed.

That is so cool. I hope to be able to go down the the ribbon cutting.

Mockingbird Pedestrian Bridge

Better They Should Enjoy Their Temporary Lives

Posted on by Bill Chance
“What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull? Better they should enjoy their temporary lives, while they still had them to enjoy.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Skull

Smoker Trailer(detail), Braindead Brewing, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Happy Robot

Posted on by Bill Chance

“When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Braindead Brewing, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Giant Cherry Bomb

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

My Giant cargo/commuter/ex-mountain bike and Cherry Bomb, sculpture, by Nic Noblique, Uptown, Dallas, Texas

Art: Cherry Bomb