Pity the poor art student; or better yet, imagine what it would be like to be one. Wriggle your toes into a pair of badly bruised Birkenstocks and walk around. Pretend you’re young and enthusiastic, and people keep telling you how talented you are. Imagine you’ve had the 10th fight…
Tinkerbell, or one of her ilk, has been to Plush, Randall Garrett’s new alternative art gallery on South Akard Street that’s attracting all sorts of people, real and imaginary, including fairies. She’s left a trail of pixie dust and two empty Heineken bottles on the seedy sidewalk in the rundown,…
Two things stand out in my memory about my freshman year in college. Three things, if you count the short stint on academic probation, which I don’t. One was the 40-minute lecture I got after I stood up in Mass Comm and gamely shouted, “Well, I don’t consider newspaper writing…
My grandfather’s version of the classic admonition, “If everyone decided to jump off a cliff, would you?” was a little more original. It went something like, “If everyone decided to take off her panties and dance a jig, would you?” Well, truth be told, during the summer of 1980, when…
If you wandered into the Quadrangle last week, you got there just in time to see them taking down Lynn Noelle Rushton’s color-charged, wax-and-oil paintings from her one-week, one-woman show, which had been tucked into a vacant retail space in the southwest corner of the shopping center’s interior courtyard. But…
The story of Fort Worth’s Reata restaurant, rescued from the wreckage of a late spring tornado through sheer force of will and owner Al Micaleff’s deep pockets, has as many knots and snarls as an unkempt lariat. Like the twister that started the trouble, its ultimate path is unpredictable; its…
“Howdy, Art Folks”Frank Campagna’s influence–and his art–is all over Deep Ellum. If there’s a mural inside or outside a bar or restaurant, chances are he painted it. He’s something of a leader to Deep Ellum’s long-standing community of streetwise artists, organizing art shows here and there, and tapping his compadres…
Maybe the drive for self-expression must be fueled by conflict. Perhaps that’s why hormones ignite the fierce independence of adolescence and why families are torn apart when the free spirits among them break out, rebelling against the family values, willing to be disowned in order to be self-determined. “Deny thy…
If you write about the visual arts long enough in this town, you start getting a little respect and a lot of perks. You get gifts in the mail–funky candles from Sock Monkey, death masks from Eddie Ruiz at Expo 825, and invitations to chichi dos, such as the Dallas…
Statistics don’t lie. Fewer than one thousand of the millions who call Dallas home trudged along the broken sidewalks of Fairmont Street or sidestepped the gutter slime in Deep Ellum last year for the annual Dallas Art Dealers Association Artwalk. Don’t blame the piss-poor turnout on the quality of art…
All things being equal–and don’t get the Dallas or Fort Worth art farts started on that subject unless you’re packing Valium and a sturdy overnight bag–the time-honored tradition of heralding the opening of the visual arts season in North Texas with a festive “art walk” or “gallery night” has gotten…
Greater minds than yours have pondered the nuances, subtleties, and mysteries of Jasper Johns’ groundbreaking artwork over his 50-year career; a couple of them work at the Dallas Museum of Art, and another was hustled in to help explain the American master’s latest exhibition of new paintings and drawings installed…
More Whitney hoo-hah Since they’re winding up the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2000 Biennial on June 4, here’s one BLINK’s worth of gauging the local fallout. This Biennial was the first to use six regional curators, you’ll recall, who scoured the countryside in an attempt to expose New York…
A lissome teenage girl lies draped across a pool table, crucifixion-style, in the center of an elegant and expensively furnished room. You can’t actually see her until she rises up, hops off the table, and disappears stage right. A shadowy figure of a man appears at the French doors that…
Overseas loan Key pieces from Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum’s permanent collection of Spanish masterworks debuted at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid on May 9. Carole Brandt, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, says the loan of 27 paintings is all part of a plan for the museum…
Shake-ing it up One change in the lineup for this summer’s Shakespeare Festival of Dallas seems to lend credence to the persistent rumors that Dallas’ twitchy Undermain Theatre, under the direction of Katherine Owens and Bruce DuBose, is setting its sights on a move to New York City. Undermain and…
He calls them “the dogs,” like other people say “the kids.” He’ll say he was somewhere with “the dogs,” or he was bike-riding with “the dogs,” or he couldn’t take “the dogs” on the book-signing tour. He talks about his first one, Man Ray, as if it were a human…
Only one month after Stephen Elsaesser accepted the position of president of the board of the Deep Ellum Center for the Arts, he found himself helping his fellow board members draft a statement announcing the center’s impending closure. At the troubled DECA’s regular monthly board meeting May 3, Elsaesser says…
Hickey B. Good Perhaps if you squint in a semidarkened room, Angstrom Gallery owner David Quadrini would look a little like Elvis Presley. At least, he’d be the one singing “Viva Las Vegas” after the April 22 opening and near-sellout of three concurrent solo exhibitions featuring two Vegas-based artists. One…
Get a grip, oh ye of little faith, and bear witness. Finally, without question, there’s irrefutable proof that Dallas can produce damn fine art. Drool-on-your-shirt fine. Lo-and-behold fine. It’s not just the stuff from the handful of local artists picked for the Whitney Biennial in New York City that’s serving…
Art movement When Kristi Chapman-Hopkins’ State Street Gallery closed in March 1999, Cynthia Mulcahy was one of the last art gallery owners to stick it out in Dallas’ historic State-Thomas district. Mulcahy opened State-Thomas Gallery in 1994 in the uptown area that, in the last two years, has been rapidly…
Moving the Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival and the nearly half-million North Texans who flock to browse its arts- and crafts-filled booths, suck the marrow out of turkey legs, and swill margaritas made with wine instead of tequila was harder on the organizers than it was on the crowds…
