Mother Nature's Sculpture
by Joan Carroll
Title
Mother Nature's Sculpture
Artist
Joan Carroll
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photograph
Description
These four beams weren't originally art, they were supports for a billboard at the same location. But mother nature turned them into her handiwork in 2000, when a tornado cut a destructive swath through Fort Worth and bent the beams almost in half transforming them into an eloquent sculpture that symbolizes Mother Nature�s immense power and mankind�s perseverance. They now stand outside the new U.S. Post Office between University and Bailey, providing a startling welcome to motorists and museum visitors. As a backdrop there is a photographic mural on the post office's south wall, depicting a broad Texas horizon and an ominous storm cloud. The combined artworks, appropriately, are accompanied by the postal service�s unofficial motto: �Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.� The tornado that hit Fort Worth on March 28, 2000, touched down on the near West Side at about 6:15 p.m., cutting through the Cultural District and the modest neighborhood of Linwood that sits immediately to the northeast of the University-Camp Bowie intersection. Many of Linwood's small frame houses were destroyed and others heavily damaged. But the help that converged on the area after the storm actually inspired residents to get organized to save their neighborhood, whose street signs now carry �toppers� with the Linwood name and the image of a tornado.
The storm raced through the center of town, touching down again east of I-35. Rain, hail, and high winds devastated downtown and other parts of the inner city, killing five people, injuring many others, knocking down buildings, and causing an estimated $500 million in damages. Afterward, several downtown skyscrapers remained boarded up for years, becoming towering symbols of this city�s brush with nature. But those buildings were eventually renovated, though other smaller buildings had to be razed. Now the most visible reminders of that tragedy are the billboard's four girders, showing in vivid fashion the tornado's direction and power. The billboard acted as a sail of sorts, catching the tornado's force and doing the near-impossible � bending steel girders that weigh thousands of pounds. For years, Al�s Trim Shop stood on the property and advertised its business on the billboard. The building sustained heavy tornado damage, and in 2003 the owner sold the property to the Museum Place developers, who tore down the structure. Original plans called for removing the damaged billboard girders as well, Museum Place consultant Phillip Poole said. But Poole, Ed Bass, and others had grown fond of the bent steel survivors of the storm and supported an architect's decision to include them in the post office's design. "The reason I wanted to keep it was that it truly epitomized the force of nature," Poole said. "You could hardly design something to come out so soaring and beautiful." The sculpture looks like wheat bending over in a breeze, Poole said, an effect that's difficult or impossible to create by hand, considering the steel beams are built to withstand immense pressure. "It's probably the least expensive piece (of art) we'll ever get in this town," local sculptor Deran Wright said with a chuckle.
FEATURED PHOTO, Abc Group - S Is For Steel group, 7/29/14
FEATURED PHOTO, Texas Landscape and Landmark Photography group, 7/19/14
FEATURED PHOTO, Urban Images group, 6/22/14
Uploaded
June 16th, 2014
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Comments (70)
Joan Carroll
thank you Judy for the feature in the Texas Landscape and Landmark Photography group, 7/19/14
Sharon Elliott
Very well done...very interesting story....I wondered about the title until I read the description. Awesome. SE v/f