ppl.
And in a lot of ways, it’s changing. For the past few months, Downtown Fort Worth has become seized with construction. Roads have been stripped to accommodate new pipes and lanes, and metal gates have sectioned off large skeletal buildings filled with diligent construction workers. A few weeks ago, we visited downtown to see its progress, and we were fairly concerned. Lots once reserved for display booths and performance stages were gone; they were replaced with prospective parking garages and shopping strips. Along the metal construction gates, there were short comic panels of a man from the 1900’s who was lost in the modern world. Everywhere he turned, he was stupefied by ATM’s, automobiles, and cops riding segways (and in two more years, no one will know what’s a segway). But it’s progress, and it’s needed for our downtown to thrive.
Wait until he discovers indoor plumbing.
Despite the changes, the festival was still the same. There was less space for the large colorful sculptures and one of the performances stages moved across the street to accommodate its surrounding food booths, but overall, the bulk of the event stayed on Main Street with its red brick walkways and small but organized shrubberies.
In a sea of white tents, you could see speckles of small people.
Like most of its visitors, we usually trudged through the
art festival on Saturday, but my dad requested a day off ahead of time, and we
found ourselves strolling through the booths on Friday with a lighter, ibid significantly
older, crowd. Seriously, if the senior citizens came a day later, they would
all be lost and pushed aside. To be honest with you, it was a completely different
experience. We leisurely walked around at our own pace; occasionally we stopped
to see certain pictures or walked through an artists’ booth without boxed-in or
pushed around. And as much as I like feeling part of an anonymous collective in
a crowd or traffic jammed walkway were we collectively inch forward every other
minute, it’s nice to attend an art festival where you can enjoy the art without
worrying whether you might step on someone’s flip-flop or trample over a small
but very oblivious child.
Later in the afternoon, we popped our heads inside the golden
bordered glass doors of the Bass Performance Hall. Throughout the art festival’s
weekend, the Bass Hall provided a short sampler of their eclectic performances.
On Friday, they provided a condensed tour of the performance hall highlighting
the hall’s intricate details from local flora and song birds painted on the
wing’s ceilings to the theater’s discrete ventilation panels beneath each of
its two thousand seats. Our passionate full-time volunteer tour guide ushered
us through the theater, the second floor, and the exterior balcony where we
could almost touch the twin fifteen meter tall angels, which were meticulously sculpted
from limestone. On Saturday we were fortunate enough to attend one of the hall’s
free short performances. It started with the soulful brass section of the Fort
Worth symphony orchestra followed by a fervent yet whimsical ballet, and it ended
with the frantic, power-laden wisps of four pianists playing on two grand
pianos.
It was very impressive.
Afterwards, we watched a movie, and by the time it ended,
Richard Elliot, a renowned smooth jazz musician, played on the main stage. And
unlike most live music, I think it’s nearly impossible to perform jazz without
a heightened level of passion that reverberates from the crowd. Without flare
and showmanship, it’s just a guy onstage with a saxophone, but through his expressive
movements and zeal, he’s able to titillate the crowd and transcend his music
past a cover of his recorded albums and allow his audience to be part of the
experience.
Admittedly a terrible snapshot until you realize that I took it
with one hand while holding a turkey leg.
In a way, it reshaped my views on artists and performers. Like
many of the art festival’s attendees, my dad and I marveled at brightly colored
the landscapes and collages, skimmed across the abstract and minimalists, and
gawked at all of their price tags. To some extent, we just assume that we don’t
get it; we lack formal education and expertise to fully appreciate the artwork.
In some regards, we perceive art to be a pastime for the highbrow intellectuals,
and with every other booth, one of us would say, ‘That’s very pretty, but what
would you do with it.’ And at the same time, each booth displayed the artist’s
lifelong work and the livelihood of their survival. Each picture provided their
perception of the world that we live in and embodied the topics and themes that
they valued and stand behind as their life’s mission to express and share with
the world. In that small 10x10 foot booth, their life was on display. And that’s
hard to put a price tag on.
Point.
On the next day, we meandered through the amassed crowds of
people until we eventually sat on the green, placid lawn while a cover band
played George Harrison’s ‘Here Come the Sun’ under the deep blue sky and the thinnest
sliver of puffy white clouds. And along the sun drenched field and playful breeze,
some took pictures while others walked hand in hand with their loved ones, and
we all hoped to savor memories like this.
