Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art
Prepared for the Dallas Edition of The Examiner

The Dallas Museum of Art was established in 1903 and features a diversity within its art exhibits, including pieces of the ancient through those of the contemporary. The DMA began through the origin of the Dallas Art Association which displayed works of art in the Dallas Public Library. In 1909 the DAA found an independent site within Fair Park and became the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts from 1936 to 1984. In 1963, the museum and the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art cooperated their collection and in 1979 the people of Dallas voted to grant $23.8 million dollars for the establishment of its current downtown location at 1717 North Harwood Street. The exhibition space opened in 1984, was designed by Chicago born Edward Larrabee Barnes, and today contains 111,000 square footage of presentation accommodation.

The works of art presented by the Dallas Museum of Art include a massive collection donated in 1985 by Wendy Reves in dedication to her husband, Emery. This 1,400 piece collection is displayed as a reconstruction of their home in France and mixes decorative arts with paintings, etchings, drawings, and sculptures from iconic artists. Such artists include: Cezanne, Degas, Gauuin, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent VanGogh.

Included in the 23,000 world wide collection of paintings and artifacts are those of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean, the North and South Americas, and the Pacific Islands. Perhaps the museum's most enchanting feature is its attention to contemporary art. The museum considers the art of today and the recent past as important to study as that of ancient days.
In 2008, the Dallas Museum of Art showed that the experience of art is inseparable from that of viewing art . Through the Center for Creative Connections, the DMA includes the responses of the individual to those of the originals. This space includes studios, a tech lab, theatre, and a child friendly environment known as Arturo's Nest, where the DMA offers a range of classes to inspire children.

The DMA promotes lectures by art celebrities through their Arts & Letters Live series. Jazz Under the Stars is a popular and free concert series that takes place on the Museum's outdoor lawn. Thursday Night Live is a weekly event held between 5pm and 9pm at the museum where art creation occurs and music fills the air. And on the third Friday of each month the Museum is open until midnight and these evening events range from performances to film screenings to concerts.

Currently, the museum is exhibiting an exploration of tourism through impressionist paintings and early photographs by artists along the coast of Normandy. Approximately ninety works created between the years 1850 and 1874 are on display and images include those by Gustave Le Gray and Claude Monet. The Dallas Museum of Art holds true to what it stands for and certainly is an epicenter to see differently, see unexpectedly, and see art in a new way.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Dallas Museum and World Aquarium

As you enter the Dallas Museum and World Aquarium you know you are in for a unique and extraordinary experience. The inside of the sanctuary pours out into the streets of West End, inviting you inside, and warning you that you are about to have your senses lifted, like a magic trick. Holding 22,000 gallons of water the tunnel surrounds the beginning of the journey with something unexpected and with a hint of welcome danger. Hammerhead sharks and Manta Rays glide all around you. The fish are not alone and are accompanied by beautifully arranged botanicals and birds. The DMWA's conversational message is very clear as you meander through the vivarium, seeing animals that are endangered or threatened in a comfortable environment, unlike that of a typical zoo. You would have to venture to the far east or the land down under to see such specimens. The best of zoos suspend the feeling of the cage and create the illusion that you are absolutely not really where you are standing. The DMWA is here to save lives and in the process enlighten and inspire your own.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Railroad in Denver

R A I L R O A D I N D E N V E R

Last Saturday I couldn't go anywhere. I was stuck at Alex's Auto Repair waiting for a radiator to be put in the good old Jeep. He's 13 years old and had numerous radiator operations and is fully aware that he is my train. I am aware that this organ transplant will take until noon at least. Now it is 9:30. I met with Alex and his team with a sip of coffee and handshake just East of the Denver City Prison just inside of Stapleton, Colorado, the new chic in Denver living. Between you and the newly developed hash-modern family homes, the gound hogs, the railroad, downtown view, and Mount Evans, is the skyline of the Western promise. This view coordinates all that is is desert and all that is rock. On the other side is more rock and more desert, but its so different. Totally separate cultures were doing the same tasks with similar tools and all that inhibits their speaking is the massive and old and dying Rocky Mountains. Yet, they are similar. Those people were united by the mountains, just by different direction. Their gravitational relationship with the continental divide simply pointed them in separate attractions.
Yet they did many of the same things.
At 9:37 I made the decision to leave Alex's office and walk the railroad.
I had brought my camera. I remember Alex asking what I intended to do while waiting. I mentioned picture taking. He inquired as to what? I immediately thought to myself he was thinking about me photographing his shop. I settled on mentioning I'd be out walking. Was only mentioning picture taking.
But I wonder. And I sat there bored of the porn star posters in the garage and the model cars and hot bod magazines in his office. So I stretched, grabbed my apple and made off across the road and wander West, eyeing a stretch of parked train cars, at least a dozen in length, a half mile away.


Ten minutes later, I find myself here, checking out the graffiti on the cars.
One says Max1994. Its 2010, so either these cars have sat here for 16 years, or they've seen some road time and this tag came from St. Louis or somewhere along the line.
I trip on a rail tie.
I pick it up and wonder when it was first hammered into the ground. The tracks don't show
a sign of missing a tie. Now I wonder when the repair happened and therefore when this spike was pulled and thrown. I throw it down and walk up track another mile. I turn around often to photograph, but the light is wrong. Too bright. Its still coming up.
I will still sunburn.


I make way for the tracks up ahead. All of the sudden I felt the insatiable desire to walk the tracks. It is, afterall, level ground. The ruts and bottles and paint brushes litter the path anyway. So 157 steps later I'm at the cross road and I have to wait for the cars to drive across. I don't really care, dash across the street, and find myself in a prairie dog den.
The time is now 10:32.
I scope out a few dens and manage to get a shot. After a long, quiet wait a dog jumps up, squeaks like a dog toy, and stands his little ground, swiffing his tail stupidly.
I can only think that if you save the prairie dog, you save the red tailed hawk.
I caught myself at the junction tracks and realize I have a pretty good view. And it doesn't include the prison or any 18 wheelers or trailers, but the rock and snow of the mountains in the distance. I stand there ignoring the sun's ascension upward at my view westward and realize I'm several miles from the car. I couldn't care less.









Up to my left is a similar stuck train of cars, about 5 cars long and to my right is a stack about 3 cars long. To my left a no trespassing sign. To my right, no word otherwise. I head right and intend to duck left and pass my way along the tracks back eastward with no question.
Not that anyone is going to question me here. I would hope I'd be smart with any cop and smarter with anyone else, especially a convict newly escaped directly across the street.

The view from the right isn't as cool as I expected. I'd been hunting a good shot of the mountains the entire walk. I couldn't keep my footing along the steep gravel and when I could the point of view from between the train cars wasn't great. The sight was nice. The photographs were not.
So, making my way past the prairie dog holes and "trespassers will be questioned" (yeah right) sign, I found a flock of birds circling the air and landing in the hundreds directly between me and the train cars and Mount Evans.
It took me several minutes to reach the cars and I didn't bother to check the time.


The birds circled and landed, circled and landed, each time a different set of birds.
Next to the railroad and cars I found a nice little spot and watched. They would blacked the snow covered peak from time to time. It seemed like a good twenty minutes went by before I felt satisfied with my jungle gym climb up the cars and photographs galore.
At 11:40 I decided to head back. I was no doubt already sunburned.
Luckily, when pocketing my camera, I remembered the apple. I thought of Adam and Eve. And him being handed the apple of destiny. And how they walked down an unknown path themselves.



Walking back I remember feeling that this was not the same town Jack Kerouac had visited. It carries a different beat. I leave Denver thinking about how photography isn't doing well here. How creativity is trying so hard. And these tracks are so long, but got us all so far.
We found a way to connect two places that weren't connected before.
Some happened to stop here, in Denver, what could have been Auraria, just East of the Rocky Mountains and just on the side of the Platte River and Cherry Creek. Others went Westward.
Some time in yesterday.
I am here today. And I walk a railroad in Denver.
And I admit, I dream of a girl as well. I remember someone special.
So special that I walk two miles, past the original and forgotten train cars, and realize I have gone too far. At least 50 yards.

I backtrack, make way across the brush, something of dead sunflowers, check for rattle snakes in the dip, and await safe passage across the road. I cross the lot of cars with numbered tickets thanking god I was number one for the day. I see a 9 and feel sorry for them. At high noon, the sun is piercing through the shallow clouds. I enter the office and find my seat is no longer mine, of course. Certainly expected. I nod and pass through to the garage. Alex is standing there, arms crossed, laughing with another guy in plain dress. They speak spanish and this man is certainly not a worker. Alex sees me and pardons himself, points to my red car, and signals me over. He introduces me to Hector, his mechanic, and I expect to be given a load of bullshit. But my expectations were wrong.
The face of my girl flashes across me, also unexpectedly.
Alex simply told me Hector needed 15 more minutes then we were good to go.
10 minutes later me and my train make smoke and leave after a greasy handshake, a good ol' switch-a-roo of cars in the garage, and a fleeting glimpse of the mountains in the rear view mirror. I see why people come here, of course. They are why I came here and those who do have an impression. Much as they would the feeling of being on a train. Experience is memory and memory is alive.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

3/11

3/11

Four years ago, exactly, I was in Memphis, Tennessee, with my friends Emily, her husband, what's his name, last name Flora, believe it or not, and my good friend Bennett, a violinist with an appetite for other places. All of us crammed into a long truck. After that, all of us crammed into a long drive. Then a crammed hotel room outside the grid of Memphis, far from the river, and further from where out show was. I forget the venue, but it was next to this oddly broken down amusement park, beside this large parking lot, southeast of town. I remember because that night we stared at it an hour before the show started. We were waiting in line for the 311 reggae show and the line went on forever. Cops were busting people for the slightest of hand. Simple swig from the can they got an hour ago down the street at the market. Another twenty people were smoking joints, us included, and 3 of them were questioned. Two were busted. We saw it all night long. The contact high from the crowd. The passing of pipes. The three hour, eleven minute set. Instant buzz from the get go. Enough to last all night. Not a bad night at all.
No beer necessary. And all you have to do is get in the car and show up.
I remember seeing lovers dance all night long all around our little group. Bennett was high on life, a couple of beers, and a few tokes off our own stash. Nothing wrong here.
It was leaving that turned interesting.
But we enjoyed our evening and ducked some trouble when some intolerant losers decided to break some glass, but we wound up free and clear.
It was pretty rad.
We took a cab back to the hotel and crashed, but we made it down to Beale St, home of the blues, for a few hours first. We figured we could go back to the car later. Plenty of people wound up doing so anyway, come to find out. We all were good at blending in. Made us friends.

I forget the name of the places we went, but we went to several. Not a black out amongst the 4 of us, but we went to at least 5 places total. People were, thank God, dancing in the streets, tumbing for money, and playing the blues, no permit required, until late into the night. Bars shut down round 2. Not the place to be if your hammered. Drunk to the gills is not a good place to be in Memphis. Not in 2010. Its learned from its reputation, but only slightly.
I could be wrong, but you should be out by 1. Thats the time to fly.
Poor Bennett.

He was no where to be found.
Bennett vanished. Gone. No trace.
We looked. I stumbled down this way. Em stumbled down that way.
Her man went that way. Almost had to bail him out of something if I remember correctly.
But, poor Bennett.

I've never seen someone on a pool table before, layed out like their back had been broken.
Ambulance was on the way. Dude was streched out on the pool table. Couldn't believe it.
Luckily I was the only one there. No one else had a clue about this one.
He truly had decked this dude and took him to the table.
Over a bet. Over a lousy bet. Over a little name calling, but mostly over money.
Never seen this bad ass side of Bennett before.
He was a violinist. Simply didn't register until I saw it. The bouncer had them pushed back. And the cops were questioning the staff and Bennett and another guy.
Bennett lucked out. The bouncer at the rear exit called the fight start on the other dude.
I simply showed up in time to give Bennett a ride out the door. I said I knew him and saw the same thing. Ducked us out. Apparently skipped Bennett's tab, and made a b-line for a nother spot. Fortunately for us both, Bennett had intended to pay cash at the bar.
He was always like that. Smooth with the girl bartenders. Not a bad trait. True gentleman.
Even hammered, in Memphis, and wanted for questioning by some fuzz.
We caught a ride to the hotel. That is Em, her man, and I did. Took us far away from the river.
Bennett showed up hours later.
Poor dude.
He barely caught us leaving.
We all had slept until noon.

I wonder what he was up to in Memphis that night.
March 11th. 2006.

Ah, Memphis....

Monday, March 1, 2010

Loveland, Colorado


Standing below, skiers whiz by,
ready to reach the bottom, not
looking where sky meets the water,
where the winter was born and exists
above the treetops, not at your toes,
not this time. These mountains have roots far below and well above the sight of human-kind.

We go here to pay homage to god and feel the power of the elements. We go here to feel alive and lighter than the rock all around. We go here to feel strong and capable and aware of awe.
We go here to see from within and to look outwards.