Holy Chihuly!

For literally months now I have been bugging you about the Chihuly Art Exhibit that was coming to the Dallas Arboretum in May. It's here! You will remember that the Arboretum hired us to build "Small Houses of Great Artists" in conjunction with Chihuly. My business partner Phillip McCloud and I thought our stuff was pretty neat until Dale Chihuly showed up... Rather than give you the "play by play", let's let Chihuly's work write this blog as we share some of the photographs that our Arboretum friend Bill Hurst of Bill Hurst Photography shared with us - even Bill's work is truly amazing!

Unlike other Chihuly Exhibits that have shown around the United States the Arboretum has lit many of the works in the garden. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights will be Chihuly After Dark. Don't miss it!

Awfully special! Perfect for a great date night with that special person. Of course, you could also run through the Monet "Small House" while you are there....

Ain't Grandkids Fun!

Our oldest Grandchild turned three the other day. Being a grandparent may be one of the few "under-rated" experiences in life! We had a family blowout, and she had a blast!

Shelby and Jake's little girl reveled in all of the attention. The gifts were pretty good too! Of course Dolly and Shelby couldn't do anything just halfway, so our house morphed into one really good party!

The hit of the party was big girl's make-up, also know around here as "puff-puff." As you can see the puff-puff takes immediate precedence over the new shower cap!

Ahhhhhh, now we're all dressed up and ready to go! Just like Mommy, Mama Sissy, and Dolly we've got our make-up on and we are ready to step out on the town!

Let's stop and have some Birthday cake and dessert first - need to build up our stamina for tomorrow's shopping!

"Bloomin' Fun!!"

Dallas Blooms, and the Small Houses of Great Artists exhibit took off last weekend like a scalded dog! The Arboretum had over 77,000 people stroll the grounds Saturday and Sunday! My favorite people (my family, and my grandkids!) toured Monday morning to see firsthand Dutch's work. 

Watching our kids, and their kids run, laugh, and play out in the gardens just seems so right. Monday was a beautiful day. Four generations of Hoebeke's were present as my parents made the trip to check out their son's handiwork. The sunshine and fresh air enhanced those beautiful grounds that sit right on White Rock Lake. Needless to say, we are all extremely grateful for the time we can share together - and for our health!

Monday was also "Mommie and Me" at the Arboretum. A weekly event that happens each Monday, throngs of moms and their kids - thick as bugs on a bumper, flock to the gardens. The kids love the petting zoo and face painting. The moms love wearing the kids out so they will take a really good nap!

McCall, Wells, and Jack (well maybe not Jack - he's only 4 months old!) checked out what Dutch and longtime friend and business partner Phillip McCloud put together. The smiles on their faces suggested that they really liked what they saw!

With over 500,000 tulip bulbs, flowering cherry trees, and azaleas getting ready to bloom, this is a wonderful time of the year to tour the Arboretum. Our exhibit will be there for the playin' through the end of the year. Mark your calendar and come see us!

(Editor's Note: The exhibit picked up a wonderful endorsement from the Cooke family at http://www.cookefam.com/2012/03/dallas-blooms-2012.html . It's gratifying to see the Houses "in action" with kids having fun! Rachel Cooke's photography is pretty good too!)

Cottage "Planting"

The time has come! While some folks are rooting around in their gardens planting tulip bulbs for the Spring, our sights are set on "planting cottages" in the gardens of the Dallas Arboretum. Mona Crider of La Foofaraw has had her crew workin' fast and furious painting the artwork on the Picasso cottage that is being built in a warehouse in Celina. As you will recall from previous posts (10/20, 11/24 & 12/14) all four of the cottages are mostly pre-fabricated construction. While whole sections will be erected at once, trimming and dressing of the framed carcass' will occur on-site.  Later this week we will ship all the parts and pieces to the Arboretum and begin setting them up.

The Picasso Cottage was the last one to be constructed. A model of the overall project was done by J. Wilson Fuqua Architects, and is shown above. Several pieces of the cottage can be seen in progress throughout this posting. Can't you just imagine all the children laughing and running through all of the openings, having a wonderful time?

The "buzz" has already started, and is growing louder by the minute! On Tuesday The Dallas Arboretum issued a press release recognizing our efforts and foreshadowing the greater exhibit to come. We have been truly humbled by the response - undeserved applause for work not yet completed! We are scheduled to be completed, and party pretty by February 19th.

If it looks like a party - it is! My business partner Phillip McCloud and I have accused the artists of having way too much fun! Just like with everything on this project, it truly has been a labor of love!

Hooray Monet!

A curved dormer for the Monet roof.

The front door wall of the Monet Cottage

A Seurat Cottage window

If you've been keeping up with this blog you will know that we have been working hard on producing four cottages for the children's area of the Dallas Arboretum gardens (See the October 2o, and November 24th posts) . Well, three down now and one to go! You see, we have a secret weapon. Turns out my operating partner, Phillip McCloud is a whiz bang at all of this stuff! Of course it doesn't hurt that he was a framing contractor for twenty-two years. Anyway, he's moving nearly twice as fast as the door/window/oeil de beouf production guy (that would be your's truly!). Could it have something to do with actual knowledge of the trade? Oh well, I'm in there giving it the old college try!

Monet rafter tails

It would be a big stretch to tell you I am an asset to Phillip in the warehouse! Matter of fact it would be an all out lie. But he is tolerant beyond belief as he gives me tasks to perform and laughs when I screw them up. With the amount of effort he is putting into each one of the cottages, our garden exhibit that will last from March through December, will really be special for the kids! I can almost hear my grandkids whooping and hollering as they race through the playhouses! 

An elegant Chihuly bowl - how does he think of this stuff?

And then comes the Chihuly Glass exhibit in May! This will be spectacular! But it's not lost on me that they want us in before Chihuly, and out after Chihuly - heck the Arboretum doesn't want us breaking his stuff! I mean this Chihuly bowl is only $25,000 (I'll take a setting of six please!).

Funny how it works out that we have a wonderful home for the Palmers that is getting ready to start just two blocks away. I guess after the Arboretum cottages we will just have to move our cottage operation over a few streets to work on the Palmer's "mega-cottage!"

A Labor of Love!

We've started! What previously was only a pipe dream is beginning to take three dimensional shape. The Dallas Arboretum "cottages" for the kids are off and running!

Foxworth - Galbreath kicked in some chips and provided us with the materials for both the O'Keffe House, and Seurat's Parisian Townhouse. O'Keffe is currently in production. Once the shell (part of which is seen below) is built on-site we plan to have it gunite'd with pool crete so that we can form a smooth, adobe like finish similar to what Georgia O'Keffe must have experienced as a child. And then we hide the O'Keffe picture inside for the kids to find....

My extraordinarily talented business partner Phillip McCloud really knows his way around a circular saw! Me? - well I'm good on the stupid end of the tape measure or the dumb end of a chalk box. Anyway, with his strong direction we will do some of the work ourselves and rely on a "little help from our friends" to get the component parts built in a warehouse, ahead of the on-site erection in February. We should be finished ahead of our completion date of February 19th.

It makes our heart sing when we think about all those kids crawling through these cottages! Who knows, maybe the next great Monet, or the next great world class architect may shortly be running and laughing in our Arboretum "Small Homes!" Sounds like a plan to me!

Blessed? Or A Blessing?

With Thanksgiving right around the corner it's awfully tempting to reflect on the multitude of blessings that the Almighty showers down upon us! Last time I checked I was not forging through the City landfill looking for my next meal; we had plenty of hot water for this morning's shower (that right there puts us in the upper 1% of the WORLD!); we have a roof over our head, and we have  a comfortable bed in which to sleep! Sure, the building business is no where near what we want it to be, but through God's infinite grace we have yet to miss a meal. We are truly blessed!

But we also pause to remember those who are a "blessing" in our lives! That list from this boy's life is wwwwaaaaaaaaay to long to count, and even longer to try to enumerate here! Just last week another of God's "blessings" dropped right in our lap.

Dale Chihuly - "Through The Looking Glass"

As outlined in my post of October 20th (For the Kids!) my business partner Phillip McCloud and I committed to build four cottages for the Dallas Arboretum in conjunction with the Dale Chihuly Glass exhibit coming in May. The Arboretum accepted the designs of four of Dallas' most talented Architects - and now we have to get them built. Ahhhhh, that's on a very modest budget! Needless to say, when we started detailing the cottage design with each of the Architects, each wanted all the bells and whistles. Ahhhhh, that's on a very modest budget! Blessing #1: it appears that Foxworth Galbraith Lumber Company, our standard lumber supplier, may kick in the materials for at least one of the cottages! Two of the Architects have relationships with other lumber suppliers so we are hopeful on that score as well. But how do you build four "cottages" of approximately 225 square feet each with nothing more than a 10' x 20' mini-warehouse space?

Blessing #2: enter Stan Goodell! Phillip used his connections in Celina to find Stan, and he very graciously offered us a 2,400 square foot warehouse for the next 90 days - FREE!! Now THAT'S a BLESSING!! Suddenly we don't have to worry about weather; and we can field a crew (many hands make lite work)! You just have to admire those who step out of nowhere and want to help, giving of themselves unselfishly, and not caring about what's in it for them! Isn't that the very definition of a "blessing?"

For The Kids!!

In the end it's all about the kids! Our next generation looks to us for care and nurture, but also for fun, entertainment, and sometimes even education! So when our friend Mona Crider approached me about a project for the Dallas Arboretum I was all about it!

The Arboretum has asked Mona to come up with four children's playhouses that represent the lives of four artists, all of whom were active in the Progressive movement, and created outdoor works of art. All four were influenced from their childhood surroundings: Monet lived near a water lily pond; Seurat came from wealth in Paris; Piccaso grew up in Spain near the sea; and Georgia O'Keefe lived out West, eventually settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now, I'm no dummy, so when Mona enlisted my services to build the playhouses, I convinced her that we should go to the real talent here in town to get the playhouses designed - my Architect friends!

Robbie Fusch blessed us with Monet; Paul Turney found Seurat's influence from Parisian architecture; Wilson Fuqua went way out of his very conservative nature in producing Piccaso; and Clint Pearson discovered Georgia O'Keefe's style in Santa Fe adobe. All of the designs are wonderfully unique! All will compliment the gorgeous gardens at the Arboretum!

We plan to have the playhouses finished by mid-February, just ahead of "Dallas Blooms!" Each cottage will have a reproduction of one of the artist's works of art hidden so that the kids can find the painting. Hopefully they will make the connection to the style of architecture that may have influenced the artist's work. All of it will be just plain fun!

It turns out that the Dallas Arboretum wants the children's cottages to function in concert with The Chihuly Glass Exhibit that will be placed in the gardens in May. They are expecting 1 million visitors to see the collection which will be featured throughout the day, and lit at night as well. Here are a few examples of his work.

All of this will be wonderful, but it's time to go to work! You know, the kids are waiting...