The Windmill

Hello! Gee I don’t know why, but ever since returning to Texas I seem to be caught up in a whirlwind! There just aren’t enough hours in the day. For a retired person I am way too busy… Today was the kind of busy I like. Spent the morning with my Art Special Interest Group. We had an escorted tour of the art installations at a high end shopping area.

The shops at Clearfork are built on what was The Edwards Ranch a large cattle ranch that was here before Ft. Worth was. Actually Ft. Worth grew up around the ranch. So to decorate the shopping area with art…

what would be more appropriate than a working windmill? In order to make a windmill a work of art it was covered with colorful plexiglass.There is a interesting story connected with it’s installation.

You see Neiman Marcus was the first store to open in the center. It is legendary in Texas…a very very high end store. They did not want construction in front of their store, which was already busy catering to their wealthy clientele. So, they came to an agreement that they would only work installing the windmill at night. The artist Tom Fruin, two workers, the art curator who was our tour guide today and her father worked three dark cold February nights installing the windmill. She said they were freezing and her Dad said he had not been this uncomfortable even when he was a soldier in Vietnam! All of this gave me a new respect for this colorful piece of art.   The sculptor Tom Fruin has many SCULPTURES YOU MAY have seen the one near the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. To read more about him go HERE