Tag Archives: public art

The State Fair of Texas 2015

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Since I happened to be in Dallas during the State Fair of Texas this year — which is held in October, because August would be insane considering the high heat — the thing to do was attend the State Fair of Texas. Especially since I’d made it to the Wisconsin State Fair not too long ago. I took the No. 60 bus to Fair Park and spent the afternoon of October 16 at the fair.

State Fair of TexasThe event has it origins in the late 19th century as a moneymaking venture, but according to the Handbook of Texas online, “the Texas legislature banned gambling on horse races in 1903, thereby eliminating the fair’s main source of income, the association faced a financial crisis. To protect this valuable community asset, the Texas State Fair sold its property to the city of Dallas in 1904 under an agreement that set aside a period each fall to hold the annual exposition.”

Sounds like one time to visit would have been not long after that: “President William Howard Taft visited the fair in 1909, and Woodrow Wilson delivered a speech in 1911. Automobile races and stunt flying exhibitions became the top attractions. Attendance passed the one million mark in 1916.”

More was to come. “In 1934, largely through the efforts of civic leader R. L. Thornton, Fair Park was selected as the central exposition site for the proposed Texas Centennial celebration. No state fair was scheduled in 1935, and construction began on a $25 million project that transformed the existing fairgrounds into a masterpiece of art and imagination. The 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition attracted more than six million people during its six-month run.”

My mother, who turned 11 that year, went to the Centennial Expo with her family, coming from South Texas. Separately, my father, who was 13, attended with members of his family (not sure which ones), coming from Mississippi. It was a big to-do.

Robert Lee Thornton (1880-1964), a banker who also did stints as the president of the State Fair and as mayor of Dallas, is now a bronze in Fair Park.

RE ThorntonHis plaque says: For more than forty years an inspired leader and a powerful force in the development of the city he loved from village to great metropolis.

Mayor Thornton’s not the best known statue of the fair. That distinction belongs to Big Tex.
Big TexThe figure’s been at the fair since 1952, standing at more than 50 feet and weighing three tons, held up by a cage-like skeleton of 4,200 steel rods. Originally a giant Santa Claus in the town of Kerens, Texas, he was remodeled for the fair to wear cowboy duds, including a “75 gallon” hat, though the details of his clothes have changed over the years. A voice appears to come from his mouth, extolling the amusements of the fair.
Big TexBig Tex is a popular fellow. A lot of people besides me were taking pictures of him.

Big Tex 2015Along with selfies with Big Tex in the background.
Big Tex 2015 Two years ago, he caught fire and burned up while the fair was on.

I’m a little sorry I missed that. The one I saw this month is, of course, a phoenix of a Big Tex, rebuilt because the show must go on.

The Curious Statues of Fontana, Wisconsin

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Around this time two years ago, during a strangely warm interlude that greened the grass and budded the trees and bushes in March, we spent part of a day at Williams Bay and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Lake Geneva is town’s name; Geneva Lake is the lake’s name, supposedly, but I’ve never heard anyone call it that. That was the day we saw this oddity in Lake Geneva.

One of my ambitions that day was to drive all the way around the lake, which we did before returning home (one of these days, I  might walk around the lake, since there’s a trail all the way around; but maybe not all at the same time). On the western edge of the lake is the town of Fontana, whose full name is Fontana-on-Geneva Lake.

We stopped at a little lakeside park in Fontana and found this statue near the beach. PhotoBatch4.10.12 028The plaque says: Dedicated to the memory of ARTHUR B. JENSEN whose generosity and foresight made this beach possible. I assume that’s the same Arthur B. Jensen who wrote Shawneeawkee, friendly Fontana: A history, which can be yours for $100.

Not far away is this memorial.

PhotoBatch4.10.12 027FONTANA WEEPS September 11, 2001. An admirable sentiment, but I have a sneaking feeling that if that plaque happens to survive until 2101, say, people will wander by without the faintest idea what it’s about, even when they notice it, which they won’t. But that’s not a reason to not erect memorials. To paraphrase Mother Teresa, “Memorialize anyway.”

Finally, there was this.

PhotoBatch4.10.12 030Never Say Can’t seems to be the title. Shirley Brost, at least according to one source, seems to be alive and well in Fontana, but I’m not going to track anything else down about her. The oddity about this work isn’t even the frog — but why a frog? — but the not-so-admirable sentiment. I suppose it’s supposed to laud determination, which can be laudable sometimes. But it’s just as important — more important, I’d say — to have a clear idea of what you can, and can’t, do.

Here’s a better idea for a title: Never Say Cant. Except people would think it’s a typo.

It Isn’t Christmas in Branson Until Andy Says It Is

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The Andy Williams Moon River Theater in Branson is a theater, naturally, and a spacious and well-designed one, but it’s also an art gallery. I didn’t see everything, or even that many works, but included are paintings and sculptures by Willem de Kooning, Henry Moore, Kenneth Noland, Donald Roller Wilson, Jack Bush, Jacque Lipchitz, and Robert Motherwell. There’s also a collection of pre-modern (or maybe Meiji era) kimonos, which are in glass cases on the back wall of the theater. The nearby Moon River Grill also displays artwork, for that matter, with Andy Warhol works especially prominent.

The story I heard was that Andy Williams lived near Andy Warhol for a time in New York, and the singing Andy became friends with, and a patron of, Andy the artist. I hope that’s true, but in any case Andy collected Andy’s works.

We toured the theater, including some dressing rooms and the green room downstairs, and our guide told us that Andy William’s nickname, Mr. Christmas, wasn’t just about the Christmas specials he used to host. In Branson, the guide said, it wasn’t Christmas until Andy Williams said it was Christmas. For many years before his death, he said that Christmas began on November 1.

Marketing and his showman’s instincts must have been a factor in that date. But I suspect that he really wanted to see his theater, and the town, decked out for Christmas two months out of the year. And so it is. The town’s streets are adorned, lights are up everywhere, and the shows switch to Christmas iterations around the first of November. I’d prefer that Christmas not eat up early December, much less November, but Branson’s a whole other world, so I didn’t mind the early Christmas so much during my short stay, when the weather was warm and un-Christmas-like and Halloween had just ended.

Besides, when Branson decorates for Christmas, it pulls out all the stops. After dark in Silver Dollar City, for instance, you can see these kinds of lights.

It’d be churlish not to be impressed by all that, even in November.