On Saturday night I attended 3 art openings in Austin with my boss/friend Tiffany and co-worker Kelly. The first stop we made was at the
Creative Research Lab, which is a space run through the University of Texas and located inside
Flatbed Press (another gallery). The exhibit, called
A Strange Land, incorporates maps, landscapes, and the effect of man on natural environments. My favorite piece in the show is an installation by artist
Beili Liu which consists of over a hundred red disks. These disks create a celestial landscape which are quiet and poetically hanging from the ceiling. The other installation I liked was Lynn Richardson's
Business as Usual II. The larger than life soft sculptures of oil towers turned the CRL space into a scene out in east Texas, where oil is pumped with floral rigs and shoots out of limp, leaning black towers.
Next up was
Birdhouse's group show,
Built Like Nests, where my co-worker John Saldana,
Jonny, exhibited his family based photography. Unframed and reflecting the light from the ceiling, John's color photographs speak of a contemporary life among his traditional Hispanic culture. Unfortunately, I was too excited to see Jonny's work that I didn't take much time to look at anything else. So I'll need to go back. I did see some manipulated Polaroid pictures that I would like to examine more. The crowd was just too overwhelming and I have a hard time viewing work at that space during openings because it is small.
At Birdhouse we heard of another opening which we had not planned on going to, but decided to keep the momentum and go for it. So we headed over to
MASS Gallery in the same complex as Blue Genie and the Blue Theater on Springdale to check out the new work by Austin's Carlos Rosales-Silva, titled
No National Monument. This was where the party was at. All the art kids from CRL and Birdhouse, including myself, ended up there as the night grew older and the free drinks kept coming. The work is a satirical take on Carlos's multi-Latino heritages. My favorite came in the form of helium filled gold balloons spelling out
Vatos Locos 4Evr. Other 2 dimensional works were framed pieces of paper with simple a anecdote like
Fuck Spain.
Finally, there was a DJ at this openings and it kept the crowd going and me happy. I'm glad I got to spend my Satuday night hitting up 3 of Austin's contemporary and inovative art spaces. I highly recomend spending an evening like this one, you will definately be talking about it on Monday.
The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is 3 hours north of Ft. Worth outside of Lawton, OK. As we made our way to the camp site, we spotted a heard of buffalo grazing at the visitor's center and then noticed one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life.
Garrett digitally trying to capture the sunset...really the best way to see it is in person, but here I got with my try at sunset photography.
Again, this location is ONLY three hours from Ft. Worth and about 6 from Austin.
So we turned our heads around during the sunset and noticed a full rainbow. I had never seen a rainbow that went from horizon to horizon. It was AMAZING!
The truck deserved a shot with the rainbow, it was our trusty steed this weekend.
Ok, so the buffalo are everywhere. They have free reign over this place. They make a grumbling sound and will pretty much just stand there while you gawk at their beauty and awe.
I realized why they were almost extinct, they are a pretty easy shot. Even I could probably shoot one and hit the target dead on...but I would never do that.
They look like they are wearing a sweater and no pants.
Picture Perfect Landscape, I love nature.
You cannot swim, but the weather wasn't that bad so I wasn't dying to jump into this river. But definitely contemplated it.
Brace yourself for prairie dog cuteness overload!!
A very county-like family fed the prairie dog some white bread, mmm yum, it's favorite I'm sure.
And they stand up like little meerkat or squirrels.
Since everyone feeds them, they are not scared of humans. They get all the high fructose corn syrup a prairie dog could dream of.
This was taken at the top of the mountain we hiked up...well not the top...but close to it. It was covered in boulders which were beautiful.
Uncle Garry
After the hike and then a picnic we drove out to Meers, Oklahoma to have the infamous Meers Burger. We waited in line for at least 30-45 minutes for a longhorn beef burger.
We sat down ordered some beers and got to reading the menu...and there it was...the first thing on there: FREEDOM FRIES
The Meers burger comes in a pie pan because that is how big it is, Garrett and I split one so this is half of one whole burger. The longhorn beef was pretty tasty.
But the Freedom Fried SUCKED. Tasted like they came from DQ. I was mature enough to eat onion rings though.
This was probably the best part: Coconut Cream Pie with meringue topping
They also brew their own beer, which only comes in a 22 ounce bottle to help you gobble down that big ass burger.
By the name of my blog, I'm sure you can tell I like animal tush...so for my own enjoyment: Buffalo Tush (with huge balls-which I don't like)
Finally, our delicious berry margaritas in reused chick-fil-a cups to hid it's contents (no alcohol allowed)
