February 24-27, 2018: Guy Blair Visits Us in Dallas
December 28, 2017-January 15, 2018: Our Winter Trip to Florida
Return to the Index for 2018

January 20-21, 2018
A Wedding- and a Day in Fort Worth

 

On Friday, January 19th, Ron and Prudence came up from San Antonio so that the six of us- Ron, Prudence, Nancy, Karl, Fred, and myself could go over to Mineral Wells on Saturday, January 20th, to attend the wedding of Debbie and David Crawford's daughter. Debbie had asked Fred and I to be "official photographers" for the wedding (preparation and ceremony) and the reception afterwards at a cowboy club in Mineral Wells. We filled that role, taking a couple hundred pictures each and forwarding them to Debbie and David. I am not including those pictures in this album as they have nothing to do with Fred and myself and, of course, because we appear in almost none of them.

On Saturday night, Prudence got reservations for all of us at The Worthington Renaissance hotel in downtown Fort Worth; it was going to be late when the reception ended, making the drive back to Nancy's house a chore and, in any event, Prudence and Nancy wanted to visit the Kimbell museum on Sunday to see an exhibition there. We were very appreciative of being able to stay in Fort Worth with them and go to the museum with them the next day. We also had the opportunity to walk through downtown Fort Worth on Sunday morning.

 

At the Worthington Renaissance Hotel

We didn't get to the hotel until very late, but we got checked in and then went to the mezzanine bar where we relaxed and had some drinks and snacks before heading off to our rooms. The hotel's room are very modern, kind of industrial modern, as a matter of fact, and very nice. In the morning, before we headed out for a walk with Prudence and Nancy, we took a couple of pictures from our room window; the pictures look north and east:

  

Fred and I went down to the lobby ahead of our gathering time with Prudence and Nancy so that we could take some pictures. We did wander around for a bit before Nancy, and then Prudence, came down.

In the Lobby of the Worthington Renaissance

The lobby was quite nice- very spacious with a couple of shallow pools. It has kind of a western theme, both in decoration and in style (which includes lots of dark paneling). Here are some of the pictures that we took as we wandered around the lobby area:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Eventually, Nancy came down, and Fred and Nancy took seats in the lobby as we waited a few minutes for Prudence. A bit later on, when we'd returned from our walk, I took one more picture of Nancy and Prudence in the hallway leading to the restaurant where we had breakfast. When we were wandering around, Fred and I photographed some of the artworks that were sprinkled around the public areas, and here is a selection of those photographs:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The only other picture we took here in the hotel I took when we'd returned from our walk and had gone downstairs to have breakfast at the buffet. That's when Karl and Ron joined us. Before everybody sat down, I got this picture of Prudence and Karl at our table.

 

A Morning Walk Around Downtown Fort Worth

We left the hotel a little after nine to walk kind of randomly for a while around downtown Fort Worth. Prudence and Nancy like to walk in the morning, and today Fred and I are joining them.


Right across the street from the hotel is an entrance to Sundance Court, an area of shops and galleries just north of Sundance Square, which was to be one of the stops we made on our walk.

Wells Fargo Tower

I crossed the street to get a closer view of that entrance. I looked into the alleyway, but it didn't appear that it went through to the south, and in any case it didn't seem that there were any interesting shops or anything that were open on this early Sunday morning, so we decided to take Main Street south to Sundance Square.

As we turned the corner to head down Main Street, we passed right by the 33-story Wells Fargo Tower, shown at right. This building is the 5th tallest in Fort Worth, and was built in 1982. It was the tallest building in Fort Worth from 1982 until 1983 when the Burnett Plaza was completed. Wells Fargo Tower is the shorter of the two towers in the City Center Towers Complex. The structures resemble pinwheels but are not true twins. The taller tower, a half block away to our left, is the Bank of America Tower.

We walked south on Main Street, and shortly passed a large window behind which was a large display of artwork. Some of the art looked familiar, and I was trying to figure out where I'd seen it before when I glanced up to discover that this was the Main Street gallery of the artist Thomas Kinkade. And I'd seen some of these paintings before as jigsaw puzzles; they were a favorite of the folks at The Bentley- the retirement home where my Mom once lived.

I actually didn't realize that the term "Sundance Square", which I have heard frequently since I moved to Dallas (any time anyone talks about things to do in Fort Worth) is not just a square, but actually the name of a 35-block commercial, residential, entertainment and retail district. Named after the Sundance Kid in western folklore, it is a popular place for nightlife and entertainment in Fort Worth and for tourists visiting the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

Looking Around Sundance Square- The Fountain
(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The area includes numerous hotels, restaurants, condos, lofts, shops, museums, bars, clubs, a movie theatre, performing arts, concerts and festivals throughout the year. The former downtown Woolworth's Building, as well as Burk Burnett Building, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A mural on one building commemorates the Fort Worth segment of the Chisholm Trail cattle drives of 1867-1875. The district is also the location of the Bass Performance Hall.

The open square itself is a 55,000-square-foot area: a place where on any given day you might find a band playing on the permanent stage, a yoga class in progress, or thousands enjoying an outdoor movie. The centerpiece is the fountain, and you can use the player at left to watch my movie of it.

All around the downtown area, and particularly around Sundance Square, it seemed as if every other building had an historic plaque on it. Here are three of them:

   

From the fountain square we walked west, looking up and down the city streets to see if there was anything in particular worth walking towards or by. You can see some typical Sunday morning street scenes here and here. On the aerial view above you can see the approximate path we followed to get back to the Worthington Renaissance. Here are some of the other street scenes from our walk:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

And here are some of the many pictures that Fred took on our walk and in the hotel:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

 

Our Visit to the Kimbell Museum

Of course the main reason for Prudence and Ron's trip up to the Metroplex was to attend Sarah's wedding. Debbie Crawford is Prudence's best friend; they have known each other since grade school. Since she was here, however, Prudence wanted to take the opportunity to visit the Kimbell Art Museum- one of her favorite places.


After breakfast, we took two cars over to the museum district of Fort Worth, which is about two miles from downtown and very easy to get to. Fred and I have been to the Modern Art Museum, the Kimbell, and the Amon Carter Museum numerous times (many of them with the Ruckmans and/or the Gleims), and I am sure you have seen those museums before in these pages.

The Kimbell Art Museum hosts its own art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, who also provided funds for a new building to house it. The building was designed by architect Louis I. Kahn and is widely recognized as one of the most significant works of architecture of recent times. It is especially noted for the wash of silvery natural light across its vaulted gallery ceilings.

Today, there is a special exhibit at the Kimbell, where numerous works from their huge collection that are not normally on display have been brought out and set up in the large hall near the cafe in their main building. I got into my documenting mode in this exhibit, mostly because I could tell that almost all the works and objects I was looking at were works I had not seen before. I tried to photograph as many works as I could, and also photograph their explanatory plaques (although I missed a few of the plaques), and I want to record those objects here.

1/47
2/47
3/47
4/47
5/47
6/47
7/47
8/47
9/47
10/47
11/47
12/47
13/47
14/47
15/47
16/47
17/47
18/47
19/47
20/47
21/47
22/47
23/47
24/47
25/47
26/47
27/47
28/47
29/47
30/47
31/47
32/47
33/47
34/47
35/47
36/47
37/47
38/47
39/47
40/47
41/47
42/47
43/47
44/47
45/47
46/47
47/47
< >

In the slideshow at left, I have, were possible, put a work together with its plaque (if available) on the same slide, which is why the slides are so large. To move through the works on display, just use the little arrows in the lower corners of each slide. You can use the index numbers in the upper left of each slide to track track your progress through the works.

I hope you enjoy having a look at these works from the Kimbell Collection that are rarely on display.

We still had some time before we needed to return to Fort Worth for dinner, so we all decided to troop over to the Amon Carter Museum and have a walk through there as well.

 

A Visit to the Amon Carter Museum

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art has a permanent collection that features paintings, photography, sculpture, and works on paper by leading artists working in the United States and its North American territories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The greatest concentration of works falls into the period from the 1820s through the 1940s. Photographs, prints, and other works on paper produced up to the present day are also an area of strength in the museum's holdings.

On the Steps of the Amon Carter Museum

We came into the lobby of the museum and stopped at the reception desk to find out what special exhibitions were going on. The Amon Carter Museum is always free for entry, although the special exhibitions can, at times, have a fee. Today, there was nothing special going on, so we just coordinated when we would meet back in the lobby and we headed off to see whatever we thought was interesting.

The Amon Carter's collection is particularly focused on portrayals of the Old West by Frederic Remington (one of the museum's most famous works by Remington is his "A Dash for the Timbers" and Charles M. Russell, artworks depicting nineteenth-century exploration and settlement of the North American continent, and masterworks that are emblematic of major turning points in American art history.

The "full spectrum" of American photography is documented by 45,000 exhibition-quality prints, dating from the earliest years of the medium to the present. A rotating selection of works from the permanent collection is on view year-round during regular museum hours, and several thousand of these works can be studied online using the Collection tab on the ACMAA's official website. Museum admission for all exhibits, including special exhibits, is free.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art opened in 1961 as the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art. The museum's original collection of more than 300 works of art by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell was assembled by Fort Worth newspaper publisher and philanthropist Amon G. Carter, Sr. (1879–1955). Carter spent the last ten years of his life laying the legal, financial, and philosophical groundwork for the museum's creation. We enjoyed walking through the museum this afternoon, even though we only spent an hour or so wandering around.

"Swing Landscape" (1948) Stuart Davis (1892-1964)

Not everything in the Amon Carter is Western-themed; this colorful painting is a good example. I photographed the descriptive plaque, and have put it in the scrollable window below:

Another example was the large installation of a "sculpture" entitled "Plexus No. 34", which happened to be installed across the top of the atrium at the back of the building where the stairs to the second floor and the gift shop are located:

If you would like to learn more about this rainbow-colored installation, click here and I will show you the descriptive plaque on the wall. We didn't take a great many photographs here in the Amon Carter, but here are a few images from our visit:


One of the Amon Carter Galleries		  
"Marion Crossing the Pee Dee" (1850) William Ranney

 

 

Dinner in Fort Worth

When we got back to the hotel, Fred and I got our stuff from Prudence's room where we'd left it and put it in my car in the garage. Although Prudence offered to have us stay Sunday night as well, it was only a 25-minute drive home, and the cats had been alone for a couple of days already. Then we walked to the Houston Street Sports Bar to meet Debbie and David Crawford (taking a rest after their daughter's wedding the previous day) for supper. On the way over, we happened to pass this huge wheel-shaped construction in the window of a toy store. It reminded me of the huge structures I used to build with my Skyline Construction Set.

I took two pictures at supper to conclude our day in Fort Worth:

 

We hope Debbie and Sarah like the wedding pictures, and we thank Prudence very much for letting us stay with her at the beautiful Worthington Renaissance. After supper, we headed home, walking in on our cats about eleven-thirty.

You can use the links below to continue to another album page.

February 24-27, 2018: Guy Blair Visits Us in Dallas
December 28, 2017-January 15, 2018: Our Winter Trip to Florida
Return to the Index for 2018