Museum Express Tour logo.

This Saturday, April 3, 2010, is the Museum Express Tour. A dozen brave art loving Texans were crazy enough to sign-up for the adventure of a life-time. We will be visiting eight Dallas / Fort Worth museum in one day via The T Services, Trinity Railway Express and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). The museum we’ll see include the Amon Carter Museum, Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Kimbell Art Museum, Meadows Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Nasher Sculpture Center and The Women’s Museum.

Here is how our day is planned.

Starting in the Fort Worth Arts District

Amon Carter Museum
Exhibit: American Moderns on paper: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum
Highlight: Six Edward Hopper watercolor paintings

Kimbell Art Museum
Exhibit: Permanent Collection
Highlight: The Torment of St. Anthony by Michelangelo

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Exhibit: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
Highlight: The Last Supper by Andy Warhol

The T to the TRE

Corner Bakery Café is delivering box lunches to us before we board the TRE to Dallas. Sandwich selections include DC Chicken Salad, Poblano Fresco, Bavarian Ham or Turkey, Chicken Pesto, Tuna Salad or Tomatoes Mozzarella. We can’t thank the Corner Bakery Café enough for making this very special delivery. Without them we would have a dozen hungry tourists.

TRE from Fort Worth Intermodal Center to Dallas Union Station
DART to the Dallas Arts District

Nasher Sculpture Center
Exhibit: Jaume Plensa: Genus and Species
Highlight: Seeing all the art in their beautiful landscape

Crow Collection of Asian Art
Exhibit: Seizing the New World: Recent Paintings by Yang Jin Long
Highlight: Autumn by Yang Jin Long

Dallas Museum of Art
Exhibit: Permanent Collection
Highlight: Sheaves of Wheat by Vincent van Gogh

DART from St. Paul to Mockingbird Station
DART bus to Bishop Blvd

Meadows Museum
Exhibit: Royal Splendor in the Enlightenment: Charles IV of Spain, Patron and Collector
Highlight: Portrait of Charles IV of Spain by Goya

DART bus to Mockingbird Station
DART Mockingbird to Pearl Station
DART Pearl to Fair Park Station

The Women’s Museum
Exhibit: Women in History
Highlight: Time Capsule 1900-2000

The tour ends with drinks, snacks, a few words of thanks and good bags. The goodie bags were created by Crow Ink LLC. Each goodie bag includes a Museum Express Tour t-shirt, passes, coupons, postcards, membership brochures, catalogs and a whole lot more from all the museums and mass transits. We also have some items from the Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth and the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

One lucky tourist will receive a free night at The Fairmont Dallas in the Dallas Arts District.

You can follow us all day long on Twitter at twitter.com/DallasArtNews. We will be tweeting our activities and providing pictures.

If all goes well, then we’ll make it to The Women’s Museum before 5 p.m. without losing anyone. Wish us luck!

Michael Roman, managing editor of Dallas Art News, in front of The Women's Museum at the end of the Museum Express Tour dry run on Saturday, November 21, 2009.

Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour

Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour
Saturday, April 3, 2010
9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Click here to Register

All aboard for the Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour. The tour will visit eight Dallas and Fort Worth museums in one day using the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T), Trinity Railway Express (TRE) and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) as transportation between the institutions. The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour will visit the Amon Carter Museum, Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Kimbell Art Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Meadows Museum, Nasher Sculpture Center and The Women’s Museum. The tour starts at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 3, 2010, when all tourists gather for a coffee kick-off at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center.

The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour is designed to highlight the accessibility for the major cultural centers across Dallas and Fort Worth via mass transit. In short, you can get there from here without a car.

The idea for the tour came into being during a conversation between Dallas Art News and staff from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

“I was talking about the DART Green Line with Kendal Smith Lake and Dustin Van Orne, from the Modern. I mentioned that all Dallas museums could be reached without a car. I asked Kendal and Dustin if there was a bus route from the Trinity Railway Express to the Fort Worth Arts District. They both confirmed the route and recommended a Regional Pass,” said Michael Roman, Dallas Art News managing editor.

From there the idea for the Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour was born. To date, visiting eight major museums in one day using only mass transit has never been done by a group. Dallas Art News hopes to be the first.

Twitter

The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour would not be possible if it wasn’t for Twitter. Shortly after coming up with the idea for the tour, Dallas Art News tweeted about it to their followers.

“We immediately received replies from followers as far away as Oklahoma saying they wanted to go on the tour,” said Mr. Roman.

Twitter was also responsible for bringing together most of the tour sponsors including the Fairmont Dallas, Corner Bakery Café, Z’s Café and the Fort Worth Community Art Center.

Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour

The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour is open to twenty tourists. Registration for the tour is on the Dallas Art News web site at www.dallasartnews.com/express. Tourists will be charged $40 to participate, which includes the following:

• Coffee kick-off at Fort Worth Community Arts Center
• Regional Pass for The T, TRE and DART
• Lanyard with tour schedule
• Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour t-shirt
• Visiting eight Dallas and Fort Worth museums
• Box lunch catered by Corner Bakery Cafe
• A goodie bag will be at the last stop

As an added bonus, one of our lucky tourists will receive a free stay at the Fairmont Dallas hotel in the Dallas Arts District. The details for the Fairmont Dallas hotel stay are still being arranged. The winning tourist will be drawn at random.

The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour will have 15 to 25 minutes at each museum. This is not a lot of time to visit a single museum, but combined the tour will be spending nearly three hours appreciating an amazing collection of art across Dallas and Fort Worth.

The tour schedule is as follows:

• 9:30 a.m. – Meet at Fort Worth Community Arts Center
• 10:00 a.m. – Amon Carter Museum
• 10:20 a.m. – Kimbell Art Museum
• 10:40 a.m. – Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
• 11:00 a.m. – Ride The T
• 11:15 a.m. – Box lunch catered by Corner Bakery Café
• 11:50 a.m. – Ride the Trinity Railway Express
• 12:50 p.m. – Ride DART
• 1:00 p.m. – Nasher Sculpture Center
• 1:45 p.m. – Crow Collection of Asian Art
• 2:15 p.m. – Dallas Museum of Art
• 2:45 p.m. – Ride DART
• 3:20 p.m. – Meadows Museum
• 3:50 p.m. – Ride DART
• 4:30 p.m. – The Women’s Museum

Tour schedule times have been rounded to nearest five minutes for simplicity. Tour schedule is subject to change.

Sponsors

The Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour would like to recognizer our sponsors who have very kindly provided increased benefits for the tourists.

Z’s Café is providing the kick-off coffee at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. They will be serving coffee and hot chocolat.

Corner Bakery Café is providing a box lunch to each the tourists. They are also delivering the lunch to the tour at the Fort Worth Intermodal Transportation Center.

The Fairmont Dallas is providing a stay at their hotel for one of our tourists.

The Fort Worth Community Arts Center (FWCAC) is providing a meeting place prior to the opening of the Amon Carter Museum. FWCAC invited the tour inside to have coffee and view the art before they open at 10 a.m.

Museums and Mass Transits

Dallas Art News could not have made this tour possible without the help and support form all the museums and mass transits. Each museum was gracious enough to waive entry fees, provide docents to highlight their collection and provide items for the goodie bags. The T and DART both provided valuable input with regards to the transportation schedules and items for the goodie bags.

Special appreciation goes to Alyssa Gardina at The Women’s Museum for supporting the tour from the very start and arranging a wonderful final stop on the tour.

Click here to Register

Michael Roman, managing editor of Dallas Art News, in front of The Women's Museum at the end of the Museum Express Tour dry run on Saturday, November 21, 2009.

King Tut at the Dallas Museum of Art (photo by Mr. Holga)

Are you ready for your first assignment? Great!

As a reader, follower and / or friend of Dallas Art News, we would like to enlist your help. Dallas Art News is expanding our list of museums to include more venues in and around Texas. For each museum listed we would like to have an original photograph of the museum. Your assignment is to photograph one of the museums on our list and send it to Dallas Art News.

Rules

I know. Why ruin a really fun assignment with rules.

First, the photograph you take must be your photograph. Do not send in another person’s work. The same fingers used to email us the digital image file must have been used to release the shutter on your camera. I know this sounds redundant, but photographers have feelings too, and some have lawyers. We only want to post images we have permission to use from the actual owner.

Second, the photograph must be good, creative, interesting, current, colorful, mysterious, unique, monochromatic, etc. We would love to see museums at first daylight, high noon or with star trails.Take your photograph with latest professional digital SLR or a pinhole camera. The only catch is that the museum must be recognizable in your photograph.

Third, digital image files must be received by Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Prize

Prize? What prize?

Really, there is no prize. But you do get your name and web site listed with your photograph on our museum page. And you get the glory of saying, “My photograph is posted on Dallas Art News!” This might not sound like a big deal, but consider how many digital image files we are going to receive for the Dallas Museum of Art. And only one will win.

Enter Your Photograph

Enter your photograph by sending a digital image file to assignment@dallasartnews.com. Image files should be in JPEG format and not bigger than 1 MB.  Send you digital image file by Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Will I get paid if my photograph is selected?

A. No. The only payment received will be our warmest appreciation.

Q. What if my digital image file is over 1 MB?

A. We will print your image and then shred it. Don’t make us waste the ink and paper.

Q. What sizes do you recommend for my photograph?

A. Scale your image so that the longest side is only 1000 pixels. We will scale it down from there.

Q. Where do I send my digital image file?

A. Please email your digital image file to assignment@dallasartnews.com.

Q. When does this assignment end?

A. This assignment ends on Sunday, February 14, 2010. Send us your digital image file on or before this date.

Q. Can I send you more than one digital image file for consideration?

A. Yes and No. Yes, you can send us more than one digital image file for consideration but the additional photographs cannot be of the same museum. You must select your best shot of each museum you photographed.

Q. Who will judge the winner for each museum?

A. If we only get one photograph per museum, then no judging will be needed. For only a handful of images, then Mr. Holga will judge. If we receive a lot of really creative images, then maybe we will put it up for a vote.

Q. How frequently are you asked questions?

A. All the time. I talk to myself.

Pinhole Photograph of Sculpture Garden at DMA by Mr. Holga, 2009

The grand scheme of our bad ideas is to bring Dallas Art News viewers and artists together to comment and discuss these wicked thoughts.

Dallas Art News does not encourage anyone to carry out any of our bad ideas or the related comments and discussions. You should not do anything that is illegal or harmful to yourself, other persons, businesses or property. Just say no.

This is not the best bad idea we have ever had at Dallas Art News. That would be the Dallas Art News Museum Express Tour, which will be announced later this week. This bad idea is a starter idea to get the ball rolling.

Bad Idea

Have you ever wanted your art displayed in a major museum? Did you ever consider displaying it yourself?

Here’s the idea.

First, you should start with a little reconnaissance. Visit a major museum and determine the color of their walls. Are they white? Maybe they are beige or an even darker color. Take a look at the identification tags. What kind of font are they using? What color are most of the frames? What color jackets are the guards wearing? Do the guards look like they have a sense of humor?

Second, you create a small work of art (drawing, print, painting or photograph) that is no wider than your chest. Actually, it should be smaller than the width of your chest to allow for matting and framing. Next, create an identification tag for your art with: title, artist’s name (your name), media, size, and year completed. Remember to use the correct font type.

Third, it’s time to find the right clothes. If the museum walls were all white, then you are probably in luck. Find yourself an all white outfit from your hat to your shoes. A white jacket would be even better. The goal here is to blend in to the museum. No, you won’t be invisible.

Lastly, you put this bad idea to good use. Dress in your one color outfit. Take your art and tag to the museum with a friend. Find a nice empty wall to stand in front of with your art hanging from your neck with the tag pinned to your shoulder. Your friend, who could be wearing the same color jacket as museum security, should take pictures for your portfolio and also tell people not to touch the art.

Honestly, this idea is not that bad. As a matter of fact, some museums might welcome a little odd behavior. But what if a few dozen artists all decided to show their are at the same time? Then it is not a single work of art, but an exhibit; an unplanned exhibit.

Tell us what you think about this bad idea in the Share Your Voice section below.