Webb Art Gallery, the 1987 love child of Bruce and Julie Webb, bursts at the seams with self-taught painting and sculpture, tramp art, fraternal lodge items, sideshow banners (“Two Noses” anyone?), and general strangeness. I loved it, and bought a trio of collages by an as-yet-unidentified architect. There were reports of other purchases and near-purchases. For those who could not attend, the Webb Art Gallery is a kind of cross between Austin’s Yard Dog Folk Art and the incomparable Uncommon Objects. Among the artists represented are Chelo Gonzalez Amezcua, Ike Morgan, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Reverend Johnny Swearingen, and Dan Phillips. It is well worth a return trip.
Margaret Culbertson led members on a tour of Waxahachie’s downtown square and a historic residential district. Ms. Culbertson, a former resident of Waxahachie, is currently the Director of the Hirsch Library at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The tour began at the Rogers Hotel, a Prairie Style hotel of reinforced concrete. It was designed by architect C.D. Hill in 1912. After two hotels on the site burned down, the Rogers was designed to be as fire-resistant as possible.
The hotel anchors one corner of the courthouse square. The Ellis County Courthouse stands at the center of that square. It was designed by James Riely Gordon, though his association is somewhat accidental. The contractor, Otto Kroeger was hired to construct the courthouse and sold Ellis County the plans of his business associate, Gordon. It is unlikely that Gordon visited Waxahachie during the design process or building construction. He had earlier devised five courthouse plans that could be customized by government contractors. Construction progress was reported daily in the local newspaper. The carved stonework on the Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse is a highlight of the building. Carving was supervised by Harry Herley, a German craftsman who emigrated to Texas in 1890. A local legend that the carved faces chronicle Herley’s unrequited love affair persists. The uglification of the faces supposedly mirrors Herley’s increasing dissatisfaction with a local girl which did not return his affection. The accuracy of this legend cannot be confirmed, however.
Members of the ARLIS TX/MX chapter attended a tour of the Hamon Arts Library at Southern Methodist University given by Beverly Mitchell, the library’s Fine Arts and Dance Librarian. The tour began with an introduction to Hamon’s Special Collections where Dr. Sam Ratcliffe, Head of Special Collections, displayed some examples of the artwork and documents for the then upcoming Meadows Museum exhibition, Jerry Bywaters: Interpreter of the Southwest & Lone Star Printmaker,. Bywaters was a professor of art at SMU and director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, now the Dallas Museum of Art. Several of his works and archives, which Bywaters bequeathed to Hamon, comprise the nucleus of this exhibition. This exhibition runs from November 30th, 2007-March 2nd, 2008. Dr. Ratcliffe also took chapter members into the vault where he showed and discussed other special holdings of the library, including model drawings by Bywaters for post office murals in west Texas and the archives of Greer Garson.
Pamela Nelson, local artist and teacher graciously allowed us to tour her downtown loft home and studio on Saturday morning. Pam (as the whole world calls her) is also a member of the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts, and began the very successful homeless art classes in a downtown church. Since many of us were late, she and member Beverly Mitchell, were standing outside to usher us into an old office building near the central Dallas Public Library that she has turned into three large condominiums. Two are for rent and she and her husband use the top floor for themselves.
The ARLIS Texas-Mexico group met at the lobby of the Warwick Melrose Hotel and headed to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) for a self-guided tour. On Thursdays, the DMA is open late and has live music. While live jazz was playing in the dining area, a group of us walked up to tour the Mildred R. and Frederick M. Mayer Library.
Texas State University San Marcos librarians Karen Sigler, Selene Hinojosa, and Tara Spies in front of the Mayer Library at the DMA.
Librarians Mary Leonard and Jacqueline Allen gave us a brief tour and answered our questions. The library has over 55,000 titles and is still growing. They serve the public and the curatorial staff at the DMA. They have two reference areas and their collection is mainly focused on art reference materials, periodicals and serials. They also have artist files. The current library was built in 1991 with the renovation of the DMA. After the tour, we were on our own to explore the DMA galleries, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Crow Collection of Asian Art. We met for dinner at the Nasher Sculpture Center and went on a wonderful tour of the downtown arts district with Gwen Dixie.
The 2007 ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter Annual Meeting in Dallas got off to a great start with a leisurely ramble through the Raymond Nasher Sculpture Center. The “Nasher,” designed by architect Renzo Piano and landscape architect Peter Walker opened in 2003. The museum and garden consists entirely of modern and contemporary sculpture. Of particular note is the building’s roof, an engineering marvel designed by the London-based architectural consulting firm Arup. Their engineers plotted the sun's yearly path across the Dallas sky and then created a protective ‘sunscreen’ consisting of over a half-million aluminum ‘shells’ that deflect the sun’s damaging rays while flooding the galleries with natural sunlight.
What a treat! Brad Hamilton was the most amazing tour guide. His passion for the Texas State Fair and Fair Park was obvious. Fair Park was the site of the first World’s Fair in the Southwest, which took place in 1936. Fair Park has marvelous art deco structures, murals, and sculptures. Bob Thorton and George Dahl lobbied to get the World’s Fair in Dallas in 1936 for the Texas Centennial. Each building has a rich history. For example the first public radio station in Texas was in the annex building on the Fair Park grounds. Brad told us so many interesting tidbits.
On October 21st, 2006, the ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter visited the Special Collections area of the Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos Texas. As you have already read, we visited the entire Special Collections area which includes the Southwest Writer’s Collection, Special Collections Archives, and the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern and Mexican Photography. Our hostess for this part of the tour was Carla Ellard, Assistant Curator of the photographic and book collection, which all focus on Mexican and Southwestern photography and photographers.
Magic Lantern Castle Interior
On Saturday, October 21 at 4:00 p.m., the group met at the Magic Lantern Castle, where we were greeted by owner/curator Jack Judson. Mr. Judson gave us a chance to walk around and look at his beautifully presented Magic Lantern collection before we were seated. He spoke about the history of his collection. He told us that he'd bought his first lantern slide projector in London in 1986 and the collection has grown to 75,000 items, including 65,000 lantern slides. He opened the Magic Lantern Castle museum in 1992; it is accessible by appointment only for private tours and researchers.
Meeting held Friday, October 20, 2006. 10-11:30 a.m.
This year’s progressive conference was rich with interesting and informative tours. What better way to warm the trail than with the incredible visual materials found at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The HRC Web site identifies the collections as “one of the world's finest cultural archives ... [which] houses 36 million literary manuscripts, one million rare books, five million photographs, and over 100,000 works of art.”
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