Entering an empty Fair Park is such a treat. The magnificent 1936 Art Deco buildings are a timeless look at Dallas and Texas. My visiting friends often go on National Trust for Historic Preservation exhibitions and have a great love of history. As soon as we walked down the esplanade, the fountains began their vertical dance. I told my friends that I had arranged the performance specifically for them. The fountains did add magic to the fabulous buildings and their 1930s muraled facades. The Hall of State is undergoing renovation and future plans for Fair Park are being formalized. Seeing Fair Park now is like going on a private tour of a museum on a Monday when it is closed to the public. Fair Park is an asset that no other city has or could create. *Esplanade Private Performance #FairPark#Esplanade#ArtDeco#Preservation#TexasDeco#1936#Murals#Dallas#Neighborhoods#DowntownNeighborhoods#Renovation#Fountains#Art#Painting#History#Park#Architecture#Design#ArchitecturallySignificant#HistoricallySignificant
Last month good friends, philanthropists and world travelers, who I met on the front row at the TED conference over a dozen years ago, visited Dallas. Their network of leaders in education, preservation, health and other disciplines is amazing. Knowing their fondness of food, taking me to great restaurants in their hometown of Chicago, and to the best restaurants in Vancouver, it was with confidence our first stop was Khao Noodle. They loved it. Our second stop was ice cream—another way they judge a city. When I show friends and clients Dallas, I am exhilarated by their reaction to the city. Museums are fabulous, but what is interesting to me in a city are the neighborhoods. The city’s pattern of neighborhood development is like rings on a tree. Understanding the neighborhoods allows one to understand the history of a city and its future. The gentleman requested a route for his 4-mile audiobook speed-listening morning walk. My recommendation was similar to the same path where I take people first. Walk down Turtle Creek to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater center, down the private drive of Turtle Creek Park where one sees a John Allen Boyle-designed Mediterranean home across from a Frank Welch designed modern home, on through the neighborhood and through Northern Hills to Knox Street, and then jump on the Katy Trail back to the John Allen Boyle designed Mansion. With his wife, we then weaved through the Fitzhugh corridor lined with historic and conservation districts and modest neighborhoods infiltrated by architect-designed modern homes and way too many generic apartments. Swiss Ave on to the Arts District just 20 blocks away, through Deep Ellum, Fair Park, Lakewood, White Rock Lake, SMU, Highland Park, Greenway Parks, Volk Estates, Bluffview, Preston Hollow, and interspersed subneighborhoods. Their overriding impression was how clean Dallas was and how low the buildings were. In Dallas we often forget how clean our city is and how many neighborhoods we still have that are only two stories, filled with gardens and trees. *Philanthropists Explore Dallas #Dallas#DallasNeighborhoods#TourOfDallas#City#DallasVisit
There are many people responsible for acquiring an art museum’s collection and making an exhibition of some of that collection come to life. Dallas has many great art patrons. Dallas Museum of Art also has a fabulous director and innovative curators, along with a collection committee that acquires local, national and international work. Here, one enters this chapel sculpture, and I, by chance, had the opportunity to meet the artist and see the chair of the Art Acquisition Committee of the DMA admiring this work. It was fitting that I was in this sculpture of a chapel as I occasionally pray that the artwork buried somewhere in the Dallas Art Museum is unearthed and displayed. It was fun to see how excited Gayle was to see this piece of art in person that she had only previously seen in slides. What better way to view the graphically illustrated interior of this structure than with the artist and chair of the Art Acquisition Committee. *DMA Collection #GayleStoffel#Chapel#GraphicArt#GraphicIllustrations#ArtMuseum#ArtInstallation#DallasMuseumOfArt#DMA#Art#Artist#DallasNeighborhood#Dallas#Modern#GraphicArt#GraphicIllustration
An artist pictures the life of a home that does not show up on an architect’s drawing board. This painting quickly caught my attention as one of my favorite clients who is from New Orleans has a painting by this female artist in her home. When I first saw it in her home I did not know the name of the artist. It was not prominently displayed over the fireplace, but it had museum quality about it. Sure enough, this artist was collected by the Dallas Museum of Art and displayed in this art exhibition about houses. The foremost quality of a home is that it should make people happy. The artist captures the happiness this home generates. *Primitive Look at Houses #LouisianaArt#PrimitiveArt#PaintingOfHome#House#LouisianaNeighborhood@DallasMuseumArt#DMA#ArtCollection#Painting#Art
Lighting is so critical for a home. In a forest or on a lake, a home might be illuminated by moonlight. In Highland Park, lighting designer John Watson invented moon lighting in trees that became a signature look of Dallas. Clear white light inside a home pleases homebuyers. Art lighting focuses attention on spaces or objects that are desirable attributes of a home. Windows create a desire to look inside a home, and once inside look out. What is better than multilight windows providing a glimpse of cupid inside that suggests pleasant residential dreams. In this art installation of a house, lighting is not serving as an amendment to the house, but it is the house. *House of Illumination #NeonHouse#NeonVideo#VideoArt#ModernArt#ContemporaryArt#ContemporaryDesign#ArtOpening#ArtExhibition#Sculpture#Dallas#Neighborhood#DowntownNeighborhood #DMA@DallasMuseumArt#Design#ContemporaryHome#ModernHomeCity#JoySpotting
One of the great things about bringing work out of the DMA archives is that we have a chance to see great art that has been hidden. We also have the opportunity to see works of art we know and be reminded of the art collectors who donated the work to the Dallas Museum of Art. In Dallas, Roger Winter is a much-admired artist. I have always loved his work and even more his artist friendship with David McManaway, a longtime friend, neighbor and an artist I revere. Artists have a way of integrating art into their lives and incorporating their studios into their homes, or in some cases their home into their studios. I saw this early on from the home and studio of James Surls and many important Tremont artists who did much of their early work in Munger Place. Deep Ellum is a neighborhood with which I was very involved in the rezoning, preservation and early revitalization. I would visit the original 1800s formal living quarters over an original office or retail shop. This painting by Roger Winter, for me, is both nostalgic and hopeful. On the corner of the mixed-use neighborhood, you see the neoclassical columns that lead to a second-story residence over the Oasis restaurant. Streets are not closed off, forcing people to inhabit Disneyland-like plazas. Cars are still allowed on streets and pedestrians are still shown on the sidewalks with park benches nearby. The neighborhood looks like it might have had a better past and that it might have a better future, but it conveys opportunity and affordability and a pleasant scale that is lost with government subsidized five-story apartment buildings. *Residential Angle #RogerWinter#MixedUseNeighborhood#ResidenceOverShop#Dallas@DallasMuseumArt#DMA#Painting#ArtOpening#Neighborhood#Residence#Home#art#artexhibition
When I see affordable housing in the form of government projects, I recoil at how grim they are or will become. Whenever I see a modest single-family home in person, or a shotgun house, or simple houses depicted in art, I feel so happy that a low-income person can claim a home as their own. In the last few generations there are many prominent Dallas residents who spent their youth in sod houses such as architect David Williams, or Dogtrot frame houses, or small cottages, or even childhood homes like that of our former great city manager, John Ware, who was raised in a home with polished dirt floors. Aesthetically, I find this home poetic and beautiful—its materials, context, simplicity and what it represents. *Home Sweet Home #AffordableHomes#SimpleHome#Art#PaintingOfHome#TinRoof#MetalRoof#Painting#Low-IncomeNeighborhood#ArtMuseum#ArtOpening#ArtExhibition#DMA@DallasMuseumArt#Dallas#Neighborhood
For a Dreamer of Houses. This Dallas Museum of Art installation is a perfect exhibition for someone like me who likes looking at art that celebrates houses more than going through a conveyor belt of generic houses. Most real estate agents and many others love going through any house. I don’t particularly love going through houses, but I do love spending enormous amounts of time in a home that captures my imagination. It might be the proportions, the materials, the relationship to the site, the context to the neighborhood, city, history, or might provoke a feeling of contentment, nostalgia, or optimism. I maybe even love more looking at art about homes. Art, whether it is photographs, paintings, sculpture or mixed media, goes deeper on why homes impact us in such a powerful and sometimes unknown way. Why does one enter one home and feel good and then enter another home and feel like one’s consciousness has just taken a beating? This exhibition curated from the DMA’s permanent collection conveys grand homes, futuristic spaces, modest homes and sacred spaces, but each piece provides a sense of exhilaration and is a reminder of the impact residential space has on the essence of one’s being. As you enter the art exhibition, you will see at the end of a long approach a simple classic shape of a pitched roof house framed by a glorious and grand barrel vault. This is the perfect site for a house framed by neon tubes generating joy. *For a Dreamer of Houses @DallasMuseumArt#DMA#Art#Neon#VideoArt#ContemporaryHouse#BarrelVault#Dallas#DallasArtsDistrict#ArtExhibition#DowntownNeighborhood#ArtOpening#Sculpture#ArtsDistrict#ContemporaryArt#ModernArt#House#Home
History is filed in so many ways. The history of neighborhoods is exhibited like the rings of a tree. Newspaper files are a treasure trove of illuminating the history and the provenance of houses, architects, and events that shape a city. The hidden artwork stored in museums express the collecting fashion of past eras. A chronological sequence of presidential portraits, whether seen while in line at the original Highland Park Cafeteria, or at the Presidential Portrait Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a synopsis of U.S. history. What a fun surprise to see busts of historical figures at the Royal Academy mined from the archives. This exhibition reminds us how the temporal importance of an individual today fades to memory, while the impact of that person might linger forever. Historical exhibitions can seem like a dreary trudge through time, or like this vibrant collection of portrait sculptures, they can heighten one’s energy and awareness. I am still smiling at the visual of a bust of historic figures mounted on a file cabinet pedestal. Down the hall of the Royal Academy, one can see the retrospective and evolution of self-portraits of Lucian Freud—another march through history. At the National Gallery in a nearby neighborhood, the exhibition of Paul Gauguin portraits provided me the best understanding of Paul Gauguin as an artist in the time period in which he lived. Portraits capture the essence of the moment. Art retrospectives give us our clearest view of history. *History Files #Busts#RoyalAcademy#History#HistoryFiles#Archives#Art#Sculpture#Neighborhood#Portrait#London#Exhibition
Is there a better living storyteller than Jeffrey Archer? One of the things I love about Dallas is that prominent readers, artists, and authors will come through Dallas and one has a chance to meet them in a very intimate setting, where in New York one might be relegated to a back room for videofeed. Outside of Dallas, London is my favorite city because it is large and imposing like New York, but it has incredible intimacy and accessibility like Dallas. At Hatchard’s, my favorite bookstore, Jeffrey Archer spoke for over an hour and conversed for almost another hour with about 70 people that included his wife, son, original publisher that is pictured, his current editor, and many of his friends at the 40th Anniversary of the publication of Kane and Abel. I have always enjoyed his writing through the years, but there is something special about listening to an author, their thoughts, approach, and personal interest that gives even greater depth to their stories. Jeffrey Archer’s most current book Nothing Ventured is another one of his books I could not put down and read within a day or two. Thank you Hatchard’s for being such great literary sherpas and bringing in authors that revere Hatchard’s as much as we revere the authors. *Archer Tales #JeffreyArcher#Author#BookSigning#Neighborhood#London#Books#Hatchards
One of my favorite pieces of art is from the collection of Heidi Dillon, a photograph of a model of a flooded room by James Casebere. Now to see at the Royal Academy an extraordinarily elegant and important historic room really flooded with a saline solution of clay by Antony Gormley was breathtaking. This transgression violates all principles of great architecture and yet it celebrates architecture. Rather than the panic that comes if a room in one’s own home floods, here there is a tranquility that transpires by the reflective depths of this flooded surface. The room is solid, it still stands, and might be even more beautiful as art floods the floor. *Art Floods Architecture #AntonyGormley#RoyalAcademy#BurlingtonHouse#Architecture#Neighborhood#Gallery#Architect#Artist#Art#Sculpture#Historic#Modern#ContemporaryArt#HistoricallySignificant#Exhibition@heididillon_hfd
The Royal Academy is always one of my first stops in London. The approach to the Burlington House is a splendid prelude to the art and architecture one is about to see. Rather than an academy thwarting creative expression, it gives art and architecture a thoughtful curatorial foundation. The combination of artists and architects comprising the Academy tends to tether the artists by the precision and engineering of architects, and architects, in turn, might be provoked to work outside a grid. This combination of the influences of the Royal Academy always creates shows in an imposing historic space that is beautifully composed, exquisitely proportioned, and beautifully hung. The work of Antony Gormley creates additional appreciation for the architecture of each space that submitted to his strong work, with different expressions cascading from one gallery to the next. Art and architecture is so different, which makes both more powerful when it is intertwined at the Royal Academy. *Architecture and Art #BurlingtonHouse#RoyalAcademy#AntonyGormley#Gallery#LondonNeighborhood#Architecture#Architect#Artist#Art#Sculpture#Historic#Modern#ContemporaryArt#HistoricallySignificant#Exhibition
New red menus were just published for the holiday season at Café Pacific. Jack Knox’s iconic Highland Park restaurant is on the holiday menu for so many in Dallas. Its clublike atmosphere has the best combination of great food by the talented chef Terry Cook, the finest wait staff in Dallas, tradition and vibrancy that transcends the age and wealth of many of its longtime patrons. Holiday cheer exudes from Café Pacific for those returning to Dallas, those currently living in Dallas, and those new to Dallas that quickly discover Café Pacific. No restaurant says Highland Park and Dallas better than Café Pacific. Thank you, Jack Knox! And many thanks to all of those that contribute to the service, fun, and civility that one always enjoys at lunch or dinner—Manager Dieter Krappl, Elizabeth, Emory, Peter, Mark, Lazlo, Walter …
*Café Pacific – Menu for Holiday #CafePacific#JackKnox#HighlandParkVillage#Holiday#DallasRestaurant#DallasInstitution#HighlandPark#Dallas#dallasneighborhoods
Andy Hanson was a high society and event newspaper photographer that shot and captured Dallas. The lens of Andy Hanson chronicled the history of Dallas and interpreted Dallas for the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Andy Hanson was a prominent figure with a subtle presence that caught the essence of celebrities, entertainers, sports figures, Dallas leaders, and socialites. I purchased three of his photographs at a gallery over 30 years ago because they were fabulous photographs and to me conveyed Dallas. His portrait of H.L. Hunt at his desk with an oil derrick on it, looking out his office window at the Dallas skyscrapers, projected the iconic bigness of Dallas. The photograph of the Beatles at their Dallas press conference, when on their first U.S. tour, showed that Dallas was an emerging city attracting this Fab Four sensation. The photograph of Judy Garland on a rainy night looking out her limousine rear window, leaving the Majestic out the backdoor just a step ahead of the tax man as she made her escape, invoked the stories I heard from longtime Dallas residents and their memories of Dallas. Memories have been shared from a time when Dallas had one foot in an intimate small town and one foot in a bigtime city. Even when Dallas was small, it attracted national politicians and talented artists, both those emerging and those that had arrived. Dallas has been a city big enough to attract the most prominent figures and small enough for the average person to meet them. We were always able to meet them in the newspaper where Andy Hanson photographs would greet us. I would never think of having a party without Andy Hanson both as a guest and a photographer. Everyone with an interest in art, photography, or Dallas, should see this exhibition at the SMU DeGolyer Library. *Shoots Legends – Is Legend #DeGolyerLibrary#SMU@AllisonVSmith@avose#AndyHanson#evanscaglage#photographer#SocietyPhotographs#art#art opening #photography#DallasTimesHerald#Dallas#photograph#dallasneighborhoods@ecaglage
Museums are in the city. Churches, estate homes, and castles are in the countryside. At least this is what I have come to anticipate. So, how fabulous to find a museum secluded in the countryside. The Chillida Museum was at one time the home of Eduardo Chillida. This artist dreamed of turning his land into a sculpture garden. In addition to this accomplishment, the Chillida home was turned into a museum. What a great example of architecturally significant adaptive use. The interior of the home was gutted, but this emphasized the structure of the residence, the thickness of the walls, and the materials. The interior accommodates the program of the museum and still allows a residential feel to linger. The interior materials and expressions reflect the region while making a strong architectural statement. *Basque Sculpture Museum #Museum@ChillidaLeku#Chillida#ChillidaLeku#EduardoChillida#Art#Artist#Sculpture#Architecture#Architect#AdaptiveReUse#InteriorDesign#Stone#Wood#Sculptor#Basque#HernaniSpain
This sculpture, to me, represents Basque Country. The iron could have come from the Pyrenees, emerging from the ground and blending into trees reflects the countryside, and the fluidity of these monumental shapes invokes the power of the sea. Why are some regions known for smokestacks or technology centers and others are known for artisanship? It has just occurred to me that the roots of any indigenous art/architecture is artisanship. Distinctive Basque houses, similar in style, materials, color are not monotonous because of the obvious and subliminal artisanship. San Sebastian might have the most Michelin Star restaurants per capita of any city in the world. The Mayor of San Sebastian, visiting Dallas for the international New Cities conference, gave me a San Sebastian apron. Of course, I had him sign it! From the hand-crafted, flavorful, hearty pintxos found along the old city streets of San Sebastian to the 20-course foam-dominated tasting menu of Arzak, by Chef Elena Arzak, previously named best female chef in the world, culinary artisanship is a way of life. San Sebastian is even the site of the international fireworks competition. After formulamatic fireworks displays to which we are accustomed, one can really appreciate the one-off artisanship of pyrotechnics at its best. So, it makes sense in the San Sebastian countryside town of Hernani, there is the Chillida Leku sculpture garden celebrating a Basque artist, Eduardo Chillida. A friend and fervent international traveler, Harriet Rubin, first mentioned this museum to me. Like a new vocabulary word, it immediately appeared in the Wall Street Journal as a museum to visit while abroad. Accustomed to the size and scale of the fabulous Nasher Sculpture Center, I was thinking the Chillida museum would be of a similar scale and what a fabulous surprise to find Chillida sculpture spread out over 25 glorious acres and surrounded by countryside. Now, it is my turn to recommend that you visit this Chillida Leku garden and museum also. *Basque Sculpture #Art#Artist#Sculpture#Museum#SculptureMuseum#Basque#BasqueArt#BasqueArtist#BasqueSculpture#SanSebastian#ChillidaLeku#EduardoChillida#ArzakRestaurant
