There was no stop on the trip that I looked forward to more than the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth. Yet, I get ahead of myself...


My grandmother and I left Austin fairly early on Monday morning knowing that most museums would be closed. Regardless we went to Dallas to at least see the exterior of some buildings. The Nasher Sculpture Gallery was beautifully detailed, and much to our disappointment it was closed as we had expected. We spent the rest of the day walking around Dallas and then visited the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. Perhaps, sadly, the highlight of the day came at dinner time. We found a Bennigans and I enjoyed the thrill of their Monte Cristo. Yes, it truly was a culinary delight, a sandwich dipped in cake batter and then deep fried. I ate about half and was nauseous but I finished it anyway.



Our final morning we wok up early to see the amazing Kimball Art Museum as well as the Anon Carter Center and finally the Tadao Ando Museum of Modern Art. The Kimball was a spectacular experience, each detail was so thoughtful and the control of light in the spaces The art collection was a nice mix, but I was focused completely on the architecture. Our next stop was the Phillip Johnson Anon Carter Center which was given a beautiful location on top of a hill in the museum district.



Our final stop was at Ando's Modern Art Museum. We were first greeted by Richard Serra's Vortex sculpture. It is always hard to describe the immensity of Richard Serra's recent works. It was a truly amazing piece of art. The museum itself was disappointingly not one of my favorite Ando buildings simple because of its' immense size. After visiting the Menil in Houston and the Kimball across the street, the Ando building seemed more like a factory and less focused on the art. That said the building's size was offset by numerous outdoor areas with calm reflecting pools.

With that final stop, Grammy Bea and I ate at Chick-fil-A for lunch (there aren't Chick-fil-A's in NYC) and boarded our separate planes.

Be good,
Mark