Totally Texas -- Blazing weekend in Dallas Arts District

Good times are always free in the Dallas Arts District the first Saturday of each month, with Target First Saturdays at the Nasher Sculpture Center and Adventure Asia family programs at the Crow Collection of Asian Art across the street.

This Saturday, February 1, is even more special because New Year’s Day welcomes the Chinese Year of the Horse, with more than 10,000 visitors expected for a day-long celebration.

The Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora Street, opens an hour early at 10 a.m. on first Saturdays. This month’s theme for kid-friendly activities is “Exploration”, and the opening children’s art activity is “special delivery boxes,” 10 a.m. to noon. Or take a family tour of art collection indoors and out at 10:15, 11:15 and 12:15; stretch and relax with yoga in the garden at 11:30 a.m.; or explore current events through poetry and flash fiction with the Dallas Writer’s Garret, noon to 1 p.m.

Grab a kid’s meal at the Nasher Café from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. or belly up to the Asian-themed food trucks parked nearby for the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Official children’s activities wrap up by 2 p.m., but free admission continues until 5 p.m. You don’t even have to be accompanied by a child to enter. For a complete schedule of Target First Saturday events, see www.nashersculpturecenter.org/.

At the Crow Collection, across the street at 2010 Flora, events overflow onto the street for the New Year’s celebration, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On the main stage across adjacent Olive Street, there’s music and dance, Chinese lions and a kung fu display. In keeping with the Year of the Horse theme, cowboys and cowgirls compete in costume contests, and everything ends with a bang of fireworks at 6:15 p.m.

Around the museum, get your face painted or your fortune told, or pet some of the visiting miniature horses (parental supervision needed for children). Inside, make horse puppets, practice calligraphy, join local writers for literary activities, and more. For a complete schedule see
http://crowcollection.org/.

Events at both the Nasher and Crow are free, but you’re on your own for food, drinks and shopping at the street side merchandise booths.

Need more to do? Admission to the adjacent Dallas Museum of Art is always free, but on Saturdays you can also take docent-led tours at 2 p.m. or create your own abstract painting in the art studio from 1 -2:30 p.m.

There is parking in lots and at meters all around the Arts District, but given the crowds, this would be a great time to take DART into downtown and pack yourself and kids aboard one of the pink D-Link buses shuttling around downtown. See “In the pink with Dallas D-Link,” January 24, 2014, at this site for more on the free shuttle buses. Or map your trip at www.dart/dlink/dlink.asp/.

Totally Texas -- Art and walking on grass

Nasher Sculpture Center

2001 Flora St., Dallas

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My daughter practically grew up at NorthPark Center, as enthralled by its museum-worthy modern art collection as by the shopping. So I didn’t have to apply much persuasion to get her to visit a whole garden’s worth of outdoor sculpture from the collection of the family that developed NorthPark.

Her twin sons were out of their kindergarten classes for winter holidays, so any outing had to be friendly to exuberant little boys. The Nasher is. There’s an indoor portion of the museum, where the boys appreciated the sculptural quality of even the drinking fountains. But the high point was the outdoor display -- approximately thirty pieces in a garden setting of nearly two and a half acres where walking on the grass is positively required.

The art, drawn from the collection of the late Raymond and Patsy Nasher, changes periodically. On this visit, the boys’ favorite was Richard Serra’s curving double wall of Cor-ten steel entitled, “My Curves are not Mad.”

Walking between the forty-four foot long weathered walls of Serra’s work is like traveling through a cave with a view of the sky. The boys didn’t have to touch the walls to appreciate the experience of enclosure and discovery.

Although admission is always free for children age twelve and younger, the Nasher offers free admission to all January 7, as on the first Saturday of each month. The “Target First Saturdays” programs include children’s art activities, family tours, story time with the Dallas Public Library, and more. See http://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/Events-Calendar/ for details.

The Nasher opens at 10 a.m. for First Saturdays. Otherwise, its hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Its site near Woodall Rogers Freeway and North Pearl Street in downtown Dallas is adjacent to both the Dallas Museum of Art and the Crow Collection of Asian Art.

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Can’t wait until Saturday for your art fix? The Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 North Harwood, offers free admission tomorrow, January 3, and the first Tuesday of every month. See
www.dallasmuseumofart.org/ for regular admission and hours, as well as discounts on combined tickets for the DMA and the Nasher.

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Thanks to readers from nearly two dozen countries who viewed my blog 2,230 times in 2011!

Here’s a guide to what you’ll see in the coming year: Mondays are about family-friendly places and events, concentrating on my area of North Central Texas. My lively grandsons are my guide to what kids like, and their tastes run to the outdoors and out-sized (as in this post about the Nasher Center). Wednesdays are about the art and craft of writing, with plenty of practical advice, such as this week’s post about writing conferences. Fridays are a tour through classic adventure literature of all genres. January’s selections focus on nonfiction adventures, and themes vary each month.

Each post is small enough to read on a coffee break but large enough to challenge your
imagination. Have a great year!