Portal into a New Dimension (Autonomy Ranch) 12.23.24

 

Art by Man and Nature, Lone Star State, July 22-27, 2021

You don’t have to drive through it to know that Texas is a huge state, but it is graphically illustrated by the different terrain crossed while doing so.  From Big Bend north, the mountains continue for some time but eventually give way to rolling mesquite-dotted hills.  (In an earlier post I speculated as to why mesquite bushes appear to grow at uniform distances.  One thing I learned at Big Bend is that their roots produce a toxin that discourages other plants from growing too close.)  Then the land flattens out and you are in oil country.  Towns are composed of businesses catering to the oil industry – heavy equipment, cranes and vehicles, onsite RVs for offices – thousands of them in rows.  I love most scenery but the really flat kind gets to me after a while.  At some point the desert gave way to sufficient grass to support cattle ranches.  Soon it turns into rolling hills.  I guess this is where the Clampetts of TV sitcom fame came from – the Texas hill country.  We found a city-owned campground in Ft. Worth that could easily be situated in the Wisconsin river area where I grew up – sandy soil, lots of evergreens but some hardwoods too, and lush green grass.  I was not expecting so much green, not to mention the first shade we’ve had in weeks.  For business reasons we need to stay in this area for a few days and the shade really helps because it is hot here, though from what I hear it’s the same right now throughout most of the country.

But what comes with all this greenery?  You guessed it … increased humidity.  Still not like Illinois or Wisconsin, but plenty clammy.  The humidity, along with thousands of screaming cicadas in the trees and numerous noisy birds we are not familiar with, lends almost a rain forest feel to this campground. 

People sometimes ask which is better, high temperatures (say 90-95) and some humidity, or even higher temperatures (100-105 and above) but with dry air, such as in Las Vegas.  Having spent time in both, I have to say it evens out.  Dry air is more comfortable even at very high temperatures, whereas in lower temperatures with humidity, you are more aware of sweating.  So in part it depends on how comfortable one is with being sweaty and sticky.  Some people object to it more than others.  But an additional factor is an urgency that almost approaches panic at times, in very high temperatures such as in the Nevada desert.  You know in your head, but also your body knows, that these temperatures and the high midday sun could kill you, so there’s a definite self-preservation factor that goes beyond comfort.

But it’s easier to sleep at night in dry air, no question!

On Friday we visited the Kimbell Art  Museum in Fort Worth.  It is a very beautiful building, built as a series of barrel vaults, with a ground-level pool fountain that spills over with the volume changing periodically.  One half of the building is given over to special exhibits.  We headed for the other half, for the permanent collection.

It looked small at first, but it’s not.  There were many wonderful Old Masters and impressionist paintings, many by artists we had never heard of, including many women painters.  There was a lot of sculpture, too, from ancient Mayan pieces to contemporary bronzes.  My favorite was one of the Old Masters, which I did not get a photo of because it was too dark.  In the painting a man is being attended by a dentist in dim candlelight with his wife comforting him.  He looks completely terrified, gazing up at a wooden model of a crocodile which hangs from the ceiling and was apparently a motif used by dentists and surgeons back then.  The expression on his face was so universal – I know people today who feel the same way about seeing a dentist.

We were plenty tired as usual after doing a museum, and looking online I found a restaurant not far, so we walked to the Righteous Foods café.  It’s just what you’d expect from the name, but not what I expected from Fort Worth – locally sourced and free trade food items, plenty of vegetarian and healthy choices.  They served wine, cocktails and beer, too, and their drink menu bore the slogan:  Detox your body, retox your spirit!  It was quite expensive but the food was tasty and also interesting.  I had a black bean, quinoa and hemp seed burger and LCR had blackened salmon tacos, both with yucca fries.  

This turned out to be our strategy during this heat – staying in AC as long as possible, eating out more than usual, going back to the trailer when the temperature had begun to drop a bit.  The following day we had errands to run involving documents for LCR, so we had a late brunch and headed for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.  I had gotten tickets online for a celebration that included a blues concert, to be held at 4 pm.  When we arrived at 3:30 we discovered the event was to be held in September!  I really messed up on that one.  The museum staff were sympathetic and apologetic, though it was of course my fault.  We assured them we had planned to see the museum anyway and went forth, though we had less than an hour and a half. 

This museum had many wonderful paintings, again by artists we didn’t know, several stunning Georgia O'Keeffes, a lot of cowboy art, and a large photography exhibit of the works of An-My Le, a Vietnamese artist who returned to her native land 20 years after fleeing in 1975.  There were photos she took in Vietnam in 1995, then a series of pictures of American reenactors of the Vietnam war who included her in some of their war scenarios.  She also photographed soldiers being trained in the West for the war in Afghanistan, and the final series concerned naval exercises and training in more recent years.  The exhibit was arranged in chronological order so it was possible to see her evolution as an artist.  Every photo she made had impact and meaning, not political but human, and she also had a good eye for settings such as jungle, desert and aircraft carrier.

As we were leaving the museum, once again the staff commiserated with us over the concert mistake, and one of the managers gave us a blank book, a journal, from the museum’s shop as sort of a consolation gift.  This was so kind though wholly unnecessary.  I was not sure whether I was pleased or chagrined to find that we were now famous at the museum, probably as the eccentric couple from Chicago who came two months early. 

On Saturday evening the campsites opposite us were taken up with a large extended family, or perhaps two or three, Ethiopian parents and numerous children, apparently speaking multiple languages.  Sitting in our picnic shelter to catch a little breeze in the evening, we were entertained watching the kids attempt to put up a tent.  We well remember those days of tent camping and not for anything would we go back.  Eventually they did get the tent up as well as four more.  Clearly having a good time, the kids made noise far into the night, and we all slept quite late as a result.  Once again, when it started to really heat up, we left for one more art museum – the Dallas Museum of Art.  Since the museum is so big, we concentrated on European art, having already seen quite a lot of ancient and Asian art during this trip.  Usually paintings and not sculpture are our focus, but I did see several bronzes I liked, and one very simple one, by Jean Arp, had such lovely lines that I took a photo.  I also liked an aluminum bench by architect and designer Zaha Hadid.  At B&T, where I worked until recently, the conference rooms were named after architects including Ms. Hadid.  I had to look her up, never having heard of her, and I found her work interesting, as well as the fact that she was more celebrated after her death.  The sign by the bench said “Please be seated,” inviting guests to enjoy it as a piece of furniture, not just art. 

 

As far as paintings, my favorite was called “Tired.”  By Ramon Casas, this painting depicts a young woman resting with her head on a table.  To me, her white dress with blue trim shows she was at some sort of formal or special occasion, not merely at home, and I felt she was tired from socializing as well as celebrating.

We also saw a special exhibit of cubist painter Juan Gris.  This exhibit had a fee but the museum as a whole was free.  (Frankly we have been spoiled rotten on this trip by the low fees at museums in general, some of which also have free or inexpensive parking, in contrast with the high entrance fees and astronomical parking cost in Chicago.)  This exhibit was very thoughtfully laid out with the different periods in Gris’ artistic life explained.  There was also a series of slide shows demonstrating his use of geometric forms and mathematical ratios.  This information was so detailed and so technical it was almost over my head, but I did give it a look.  Mostly I just took the approach I usually do with art, not being an artist myself – I look at a painting and decide what I like or don’t like, what moves me or doesn’t.  The photo included here is simply the painting I liked best from the exhibit.  I especially liked the way you can see the writing on the pages through the glass.

Having to remain in the Dallas area for one more day, we visited the Dallas World Aquarium on Monday.  This is an elaborate, multi-level collection of birds, animals and fish, as much a zoo as an aquarium, with the various levels representing different environments in different countries.  As if I were not saturated with beauty from the past few days, here is the best of extravagant eye candy that nature has to offer.  There are tropical plants that grow nearly to the ceiling of the building, flowers sprouting out of trees, vines grabbing at your hair and mist everywhere.  

There are larger habitats and smaller land and water exhibits, everything from the usual brightly colored tropical fish to a sloth and a manatee which the kids kept calling a whale.  There were sharks in a tank you could walk under, with big sawtooth faces, and tiny delicate seahorses that could easily be mistaken for water plants (these were my favorite).  A group of stingrays swam in a pool so shallow you could almost touch it.  They looked like brown velvet bedazzled with gems.  

The aquarium was quite busy.  I had forgotten what it’s like in a crowd with families, strollers and kids and baby carriers.  You really had to watch where you were going though everyone was polite and courteous to each other. 

On the bottom floor there were smaller aquaria from different countries or regions.  There was a small exhibit with several penguins living outdoors, and a flock of flamingos you could almost touch, they were so close.  There were two huge crocodiles in a pond with large fish.  I figure they must feed the crocs pretty well to keep them from eating the fish.  There was a warning sign by the crocodile pond, which always makes me shake my head because it suggests someone did actually lean over and try to bug the croc at some point, a bad idea with a 12-foot predator, more than two feet of which is jaw!

It was an enjoyable time, not perhaps as strenuous or demanding of close attention as the art museums we have been to in the past few days.  My main problem with the attraction is the QR codes.  These are everywhere these days from restaurant menus to the exhibits we saw at the aquarium.  You scan the code with your phone and find a link to an online menu or, in this case, information about the exhibit you are looking at.  The codes became prevalent during Covid on the theory that touchless is the way to go to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.  However, it has been proven that the virus is hardly ever spread by touching surfaces, but is spread by droplets from sneezing or coughing.  Thus all the fuss about disinfecting surfaces and having touchless systems is probably a waste.  I think it gives people the reassurance that they are doing something but may be misleading if it doesn’t actually help.  But more than that, I don’t want to be on my phone all the time.  I realize I may be in the minority but I feel it is a removal from the experience to read about an animal in tiny print on my phone, rather than on a placard right next to the exhibit that I can quickly read.  I’m really not a Luddite and I use my phone extensively.  I just don’t want to be required to have to use it all the time. 

The result was that I did not use the codes in the museum, so I sometimes was not sure of the name or origin or habits of the animal I was looking at.  I tried to keep up and do the best I could to enjoy it without a constant referral to my device.  I may have missed some things but I had a good time.

In the evening, we visited Lamar, a friend from back in the days when we lived in South Shore, and his family.  We had been waiting for a package to be delivered to his house.  It was a joy to see them after many years, especially his two adorable little sons.  Though not a long visit, it left us smiling all the way back to the campsite.

Heading north next!