Douglas Newby Insights - Page 25
Larry Boerder Endures
Here is a large Larry Boerder architect-designed house that ten years ago replaced an even larger home built in the 1980s in this Preston Hollow neighborhood. Better placed, more proportional to its large lot, and architecture that has a timeless quality to it, creates a home that looks like it can endure and be enjoyed for more than the 20-year lifespan of its predecessor. We often think of the importance of site and design of modern homes. This architect-designed home shows it can be just as important for a traditional home that draws from historic precedent.
#PrestonHollow #EstateArea #Architecture #ClassicArchitecture #HistoricDesign #DallasNeighborhood #Dallas #EstateHome @larryboerder_architects #architect #dallasarchitecture
Secessionist Backdrop
Some of the Jonas Wood paintings in the current solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art have a Secessionist element to them. The DMA brilliantly used wallpaper in some of the museum gallery spaces that was reminiscent of the Neue Galerie Secessionist exhibition a few years ago. I love the way the botanical paintings were displayed on this background. The Dallas Museum of Art put on a great show and displayed a very fine artist!
#Secessionists @NeueGalerieNY #JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #ArtAttire #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum
First Museum Show
The first major art show for an artist is a big deal. The first major solo museum exhibition for an artist is maybe even a bigger deal. It is also a big deal to the museum to be able to have the first major solo exhibition of an artist. The recent opening featuring Jonas Wood at the Dallas Museum of Art was a triumph for both the artist and the museum. It was also a joy for all of those that attended. Jonas Wood had his first major New York show just ten years ago. Now, just days before his 42nd birthday, the DMA is celebrating his work with this mid-career exhibition. This museum opening was my favorite art opening in a long time. It included the genuine excitement of the artist who was enjoying his first museum show, the pride of his extended family all in attendance, the keen interest of gallery owners from New York, Los Angeles and Dallas who were also attending the opening, and collectors of his work from Dallas and across the country that were in attendance, as were couple number one. Those seeing his work in person for the first time were also thrilled. Enthusiasm for the arts, not pretense, was the mood. Kudos to the DMA Director Agustin Arteaga and Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Anna Katherine Brodbeck, who initiated, curated, and organized this exhibition.
#JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum #art
Dress for Painting
There is often much conversation on how one should dress for an art opening or how art patrons were dressed for the event. The specific museum, gallery, or featured artist might often subliminally or consciously guide these sartorial decisions. It is fun to see when someone hits the tone of the evening exactly right with their attire. At this exhibition, Beverly gets my enthusiastic nod for so closely tracking Henri Rousseau’s influence on this painting with her beautiful green mid-length open jacket.
#HenriRousseau #JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #ArtAttire #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum #joyspotting
Mother – Theater Designer
Not everyone grows up with their kitchen woodwork painted purple, but not everyone has a mother like artist Jonas Wood’s mother who was an artist and theater designer. We can see the colorful expression that artist Jonas Wood grew up with from this painting of the family home in Weston, Massachusetts, where he was raised. He was the beneficiary of this colorful exuberance as a child. We are the beneficiaries of his exuberant art now. The joy of Jonas Wood’s work seen at the Dallas Museum of Art solo exhibition spilled over to the people that attended his opening at the DMA. His art is strong, expressive, and brings a smile to the viewer.
#PurpleWoodwork #JonasWood #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #Kitchen #MuseumOpening #Dallas #ArtOpening #Art #Artist #Design #Color #ArtsDistrict #TheaterDesigner #Mother #WestonMA #joyspotting
Scholar Studying Up
Read, look, or listen are three approaches to learning about the Jonas Wood exhibition opening at the DMA. A prominent gallery owner and fellow SMU Town & Gown member chose to read the exhibition catalog before he viewed the paintings. A distinguished museum director got up close to the painting maybe to authenticate it or to study brushstrokes. My choice of an introduction to this painting was to listen. The delightful family of Jonas Wood came to the opening where I met his dad in front of the painting of the bathroom of the home Jonas Wood grew up in. The back story was particularly interesting to me. Jonas’ father is an architect who bought this 1903 home in Weston, MA, in 1975 and owned it until 2016. In 1975 I bought my 1905 house that was also dilapidated; however, his was painted battleship gray and was considered the “horror house” of Weston. The agent thought when seeing the young couple (wife in overalls and husband with long hair and beard) that the house was going to go from bad to worse. Mr. Wood assured the agent his wife was an artist and he was an architect and knew what to do with the home. He showed me many details of the painting, from the American Standard bathtub five inches longer than usual, the replica pedestal sink, and ceramic tile installed in 1935, the last year any work had been done on the house. Mr. Wood discussed many of the travesties of the home that he corrected over the next several decades. He mentioned that Jonas’ mother was able to see her son’s first major New York show in 2009 right before she died. The oral history of the home and family gave depth to the paintings in the exhibition. There is an intimacy and bond with the architecture that comes from living in a 100-year-old home. The extravagant details and patterns of architecture in the paintings of Jonas Wood reflect his having an architect and artist as parents and his entire young life observing the patterns, proportions, materials, and quirks of an old house. Listening adds depth that even the most acute studying and the most intense observation cannot offer.
#JonasWood #Art #Artist #Architect #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #Dallas #MuseumOpening
Suburban Brownwood
A view out the front door of this Dick Clark architect-designed modern home presents a much different look than that of a flat Dallas neighborhood suburban development. Even with other homes in the vicinity, there is a sense of endless Texas country and a rugged rather than city environment. Here is a site where the advantage of large modern home windows makes sense. #Brownwood #Architect #Architecture #FrontDoorView #SuburbanDevelopment #Country #Hill Country #TexasHillCountry #NorthHillCountry #Design #Contemporary #Modern #ModernHome
Hill Country Looms
The flat plains of much of Texas can lull a driver, then all of a sudden one hits the northern edge of Texas Hill Country and there is a hill maybe not remarkable for many places in the country, but almost a shock to the system of a flatlander.
#Texas HillCountry #NorthHillCountry #HillCountry #Flatlander #Brownwood #Hill #FlatPlains
Camellia and Safflower
While I missed capturing in this image one of the frequent cardinals enjoying the safflower seeds and fresh berries out the window, the camellia blooms were saved from the recent freeze and brought inside as an homage to the cardinals that stop by and always cheer up gray winter days.
#Dallas #Neighborhood #MungerPlace #Camellias #City #CamelliaBlooms #flowers #urbanyard
Backyard Concentrated ADUs
Surrounded by single-family homes on two sides, are these 70 new ADU-sized apartments being built, a block from a historic district. This small apartment complex is equivalent to building backyard rental houses behind 70% of Swiss Avenue Historic District homes or building a backyard apartment house behind one of every three homes in the Munger Place Historic District. If just one more small apartment project was built close to these single-family zoned neighborhoods it would create the density equivalent of building backyard rental houses behind every single-family home in the Munger Place Historic District. The City Councilman for the neighborhood has promoted backyard rental houses and promised to get permission for anyone wanting to build a backyard rental house in their backyard. Even if every homeowner builds a backyard rental house, it would only offer a dent in the low density that the City Councilman despises, but the backyard rental houses would be devastating to the single-family middle income neighborhoods, the city, and the environment. The Dallas Morning News just ran a story about how the temperatures of urban areas are rising twice as fast as the rest of the country. One solution and action taken is to plant more trees. One might think that the trees that get destroyed for backyard rental house/ADUs are more important than another apartment unit. One also might think that having neighborhoods with backyard trees and play areas for children is more important than another apartment neighborhood with streets lined with cars where kids cannot ride their bikes or play safely in the front yards and parkways of their neighborhood.
#ADU #BackyardRentalHouse #GrannyFlats #Apartments #EastDallasApartments #MungerPlace #MungerPlaceHistoricDistrict #SwissAvenue #SwissAvenueHistoricDistrict #Fitzhugh #Density #LowDensity #Dallas #DallasCityCouncil #SingleFamilyHomes #BackyardTrees #MiddleClassNeighborhoods #MiddleIncomeNeighborhoods #Urban