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music

tornado time in texas

I spent a lot of time in the cellar in my formative years. Most people who grew up in the Great South Plains of Texas did. I can remember Mama, my mama’s mama (I know… that’s a LOT of mama’s in one sentence) telling me when I was a boy that she had seen a tornado pluck all the feathers off a chicken and not even hurt the chicken! I don’t doubt it, but hey… at least the chicken was halfway prepared for Sunday dinner!

I can still remember seeing a picture on the front page of the Plainview Daily Herald of cars parked at Hale Center High School for graduation in 1965. If one couldn’t read and was just looking at the pictures, you would have thought that someone had come along and rolled down the front windows of four or five cars parked side by side, then took a telephone pole and carefully maneuvered it through all of those car windows and left it there as a prank.

Tornados do strange things.

When I was in high school, a tornado hit Plainview. At the time there was a super slide on 5th St. For those unfamiliar with a ‘super slide’, it was a huge fiberglass slide approximately 50’ high with several lanes and two moguls for lack of a better word. For fifty cents, they gave you a burlap bag and you could slide down on said bag as many times as you could climb the stairs for 20 minutes or so. Honestly, it was a lot of fun for a small-town kid whose biggest thrill was getting into the high school ‘after hours’ so to speak. That tornado took the super slide on a trip towards Oklahoma. Parts of it were found in Clarendon, around 100 miles NE of Plainview. I’ll never forget the destruction, mostly on the west side of town. It was no different than what you witnessed on the news today… neighborhoods were unrecognizable.

When I was a young man, I was employed by Southwestern Bell Telephone. In the big boss’s office in Lubbock, which I visited only a couple of times (possibly for disciplinary reasons or maybe just to say hey), there was a piece of telephone cable from the May 11, 1970 tornado which took out a large portion of downtown Lubbock. It had a splinter of wood around a foot long and no thicker than a number two pencil driven right through the middle. This piece of cable was, I believe, a 2,400 pair cable which means it contained 4,800 copper wires encased in a stainless steel sheath and a polypropylene cover. It was as thick as a grown man’s arm. You could not have drilled a hole through that cable and put that splinter of wood through it no matter how hard you tried. Totally amazing.

Just last week, all the national news outlets featured a video of a teenager from Elgin, Tx driving home from a job interview at Whataburger and driving THROUGH a tornado crossing the highway. The tornado flipped his truck on its side, spun it ‘round like a whirligig, set it back on its wheels and the young man continued on his merry way! My initial reaction to seeing this was “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FRICKIN’ MIND”!!! Now, you CAN NOT get more Texan than this story, especially with Whataburger involved. Whatever drove (no pun intended) that boy to drive right through the tornado is beyond me, but because of his lack of judgment, a Chevrolet dealer in Fort Worth GAVE him a new Chevy truck!

Yep, tornados do strange things, and apparently so do Chevy dealers.

Generally on our frequent springtime trips to the netherworld, on the way to the cellar I would grab whatever money I had (which probably was never more than $1.35} as well as the cookie jar on the way out the back door. My dad would go get my grandmother, but my granddad refused to come. He always said, “if it’s gonna get me, it’s gonna get me”. I came to understand his reasoning. There were certain members of our family who became fanatically frantic at the mere mention of a tornado. Eventually, I realized my granddad’s preference of a tornado to an hour couped up in a hole in the ground with such distress.

So, it is indeed “Tornado Time in Texas” and as Guy Clark states in the chorus of one of my favorite songs of his… “tornado time in Texas; take the paint right off of your barn; tornado time in Texas; blow the tattoo off of your arm”…

enjoy,

c
r

Categories
events

Lubbock Arts Festival 2021

Our very first piece of mail after moving back to West Texas – an acceptance letter that this piece, Real Men Wear Masks, a 16×20 oil on canvas, will be featured in the Juried Exhibit at Lubbock Arts Festival – July 24-26, 2021. Looking forward to it!

Categories
events

Cultura Del Vaquero Exhibit

This year, two of Chris Reecer’s paintings were accepted for inclusion in Cultura Del Vaquero Jurored Exhibition at The Fort Worth Community Arts Center which takes place during the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo from January 10 through February 23, 2020.

 

The exhibit embraces the spirit and theme of western based artwork. Artists from all 50 states have submitted works of a western theme for consideration.

 

Cultura del Vaquero 

January 10 – February 28, 2020

Artist Reception Friday, January 10 at 6-9 p.m.

More info

Cultura del Vaquero Juried Exhibition

Daryoush Ababaf, Brandin Baron, Kelly Berry, Pat Brown, Beverly Dennis, Anita Giraldo, James Edward Loveless Jr., James Neiswender, Charla Pavlik, Chris Reecer

 

big dipper
big dipper | oil on canvas 24x30 | $1500
the stars at night are big and bright
the stars at night are big and bright | oil on canvas 36x48 | $1750

About the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo

The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo is the oldest continuously running livestock show and rodeo. It has been held annually in Fort Worth, Texas since 1896, traditionally in mid-January through early February. In March 1918, the Fort Worth Stock Show first went indoors at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards. A century later, the Stock Show Rodeo is held at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum and has been there since 1944.

 

About the Cultura del Vaquero Exhibit

The Fort Worth Community Arts Center, neighbor to the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, is dedicating January and February, 2019 to the spirit of the west. 9000 sq ft of gallery space will be dedicated to works that embrace the spirit and theme of western based artwork.

 

Categories
events paintings

The Lone Pilgrim on exhibit: Cultura del Vaquero

Chris Reecer’s painting “The Lone Pilgrim” will be featured in a Jurored Exhibit entitled “Cultura Del Vaquero” at The Fort Worth Community Arts Center during the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo during January and February 2019.

The Lone Pilgrim is the second piece in a homage to the artist Rene Magritte and Reecer’s own West Texas Heritage. 

The exhibit embraces the spirit and theme of western based artwork. Artists from all 50 states have submitted works of a western theme for consideration. 

Cultura Del Vaquero Jurored Exhibit

Opening Reception 6-9pm, Jan 4, 2019

Exhibit Dates
Jan 4, 2019 – Feb 20, 2019

The Fort Worth Community Arts Center
(Front Gallery)

 

The Lone Pilgrim Oil on Canvas by Chris Reecer
The Lone Pilgrim, Oil on Canvas 36x48

About the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo

The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo is the oldest continuously running livestock show and rodeo. It has been held annually in Fort Worth, Texas since 1896, traditionally in mid-January through early February. In March 1918, the Fort Worth Stock Show first went indoors at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards. A century later, the Stock Show Rodeo is held at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum and has been there since 1944.

About the Cultura del Vaquero Exhibit

The Fort Worth Community Arts Center, neighbor to the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, is dedicating January and February, 2019 to the spirit of the west. 9000 sq ft of gallery space will be dedicated to works that embrace the spirit and theme of western based artwork.

 

Categories
photography

The 2018 Audubon Photography Awards: Top 100

Feast your eyes on the American Wigeon.
A photograph that Chris submitted to the 2018 Audubon Photography Awards Top 100 selected to be among the 100 best shots!

This year photographers from across the United States and Canada submitted more than 8,000 images to the ninth annual Audubon Photography Awards. We know you want to see more of the entries, so every year we select 100 additional photographs to share. Displayed in no particular order, the images here feature birds in all their varied glory, from intimate portraits of family life to fascinating feeding behavior to massive flocks in motion. To view them all go to https://www.audubon.org/news/the-2018-audubon-photography-awards-top-100

Category: Amateur
Photographer: Chris Reecer
Species: American Wigeon
Location: Trinity Park, Fort Worth, TX
Story Behind the Shot: With their beautiful colors and unusual calls, American Wigeons are among Reecer’s favorite birds and photographic subjects. Lucky for Reecer, Trinity Park, in his hometown of Fort Worth, hosts plenty of waterfowl in winter, wigeons included. He found this male taking a mid-morning nap one December day, and was drawn to its reflection in the mirror-like water.

Categories
events

TAC impromptu invitational

Two of Chris Reecer’s oil paintings have been selected for the TAC Impromptu Invitational at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. This exhibit will include other artist members of the TAC (Texas Art Coalition) who’s art is selected through a curatorial process by local arts professionals. He will be attending the artist reception Friday, July 6.

EXHIBITION DATES: 7/6/2018 – 7/28/2018

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, July 6, 2018 6-9pm

1300 Gendry Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107
 
On display:


small faces and V8 small faces and V8

 


femme qui monte femme qui monte