Category: San Antonio Parks

Return to the Alamo: Please don’t gag the Daughters (Whose side am I on anyway?).

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Kathleen Carter. Karen Thompson. You go, girls! Speak your mind.

According to Ken Herman in the Austin Statesman, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is attempting to force these leaders of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to bite their tongues:

…Patterson banned Daughters of the Republic of Texas officials from talking to reporters about the Alamo without his agency’s approval. “Information released without prior knowledge and express approval of the GLO may be grounds for immediate contract termination,” says his new rule.

Now those are fighting words.

Commissioner Patterson, you are new at your job. Yes, I know you have been Land Commissioner for a decade, but you are newly arrived at the Alamo. Yes, I know the Sons of the Republic of Texas deemed you a Knight of San Jacinto and you represented the county that includes the soaring monument on the battleground. But having that giant erection in your backyard must have gone to your head.

The Alamo is different. As San Antonians first and Texans second, we regard fighting about the Alamo as a sacred right. We have been fighting publicly about it since 1836, and no one in Austin can quash those afflicted with severe cases of Alamobsession.

Yes, running a dictatorship is easier than a democracy, but the Daughters themselves already tried that approach. Some of the very people Commissioner Patterson wants to silence attempted to gag dissension among their own siblings. Without success. Fortunately for Texas. If Daughters were not so persistently outspoken, the General Land Office would not be in charge of the Alamo today.

Aside from supporting their right to free speech, my agreement with the Daughters probably pretty much stops there. Although, I never thought the Daughters would call trump with the double-edged Native American card.

The Alamo Always Trumps
1936 Texas Centennial No 5, “The Alamo always Trumps,” digital collage by Gayle Brennan Spencer, Visit http://postcardssanantonio.com.

Again, from Herman’s column in the Statesman:

…Daughters’ President General Karen R. Thompson said her organization “strongly” objects to the change. “The Alamo grounds are considered sacred, not only because 189 men died in battle on March 6, 1836, but because the remains of Native Americans are buried and entombed in the complex property,” she said in a statement.

The Daughters and the descendants of the original Native Americans whose labors contributed to the ancient mission’s walls are rarely on the same page. But adversity calls for uniting all underdogs.

And unite against what common enemy?, you might ask if you make it this far into this post.

“Hooch,” as Carter terms it. If you somehow missed this story affecting the lives of all Texans, catch up by reading Scott Huddleston’s “Hold the ‘Hooch’” in the San Antonio Express-News. The Land Commissioner has proposed alcohol could be served to those renting out Alamo Hall, not the Alamo itself, for special events.

Yes, the painful specter of prohibition raises its head once again. The leadership of the Daughters evidently thinks nothing stronger than apple cider should be raised in toasts anywhere near the Alamo.

Apple cider? What would Davey say?

While I’m willing to accept William Barrett Travis might have been a teetotaler, what about the rest of the guys?

Taking a lead of freedom of revision of history from the Texas State Board of Education and accepting Travis did indeed draw a line in the sand….  If Travis asked how many men wanted to be forced to convert to Catholicism, many men at the Alamo would have leapt to join him for the promise of freedom of religion.

If Travis asked who wants to continue to ride deep into the heart of Coahuila every time you want to conduct official business, not many at the Alamo would have stayed on the side of Mexico. That was a major inconvenience.

But, on the other hand, if Travis had drawn a line and said you can drink alcohol on the Mexican side but my side is dry? Travis might have found himself pretty lonely.

Free speech I’m all for preserving, so the Daughters get my backing on that issue. But keeping Alamo Hall, which was off the battle site, dry? Not worth fighting for.

This is not an “Alamoment.” Seems as though both the Daughters and the Commissioner should pick their battles more carefully. They should be forging a strong partnership, not tearing it asunder.

What would Davey say? Remaining in the revisionist vein of amateur historians, I think he gladly would raise a glass of something hard:

Salud, amor, pesetas y tiempo para disfrutarlos.

The Birth of Three-Ton Tally

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Emerging from the creative founders of RAT (Rock Carvers, Artists and Themebuilders), Thom Hunt and Mark Whitten, Tally began to hatch in the backyard of San Antonian Kirby Whitehead more than a week ago. Volunteers showed up to work on her every day beginning about 5 a.m., according to logistical coordinator Wes Vollmer.

A spinal cord of 6-inch steel spread out into a network of 3-inch and 2-inch steel welded together. Then rebar was shaped and welded to flush out her massive shape even more. A web of SpiderLath fiberglass over this provided the base for the first shot of concrete.

Today, volunteers and workshop participants – Theming in Large Scale – are putting finishing touches on her in the middle of an exhibit hall at the Convention Center as part of the Concrete Decor Show. Whitten was carving Tally’s scales this morning out of a softer outer layer of concrete, while Julia Dworchack was polishing her teeth. The first blush of color has been applied to her cheeks.

With a spiky “sail” running along her spine and weapon-like talons on her front “arms,” the life-size carnivorous Acrocanthosaurus is beginning to look ferocious. And she’s substantial. Measuring almost 30 feet from her snout to the tip of her tail, she now weighs in at about three tons – three tons Vollmer is going to have to move to the south side of the Witte Museum, where she will appear poised to relentlessly pursue some peaceful, vegetable-loving sauropod grazing in Brackenridge Park. 

This large gift the concrete artisans are leaving behind them after their convention is in addition to the sidewalk patterns, faux-crete fountain and 5,000 square feet of concrete cosmetology they have completed at SAY Si (covered in an earlier post).

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Meet here again, and I’d be happy to let you conduct a workshop – Concrete Challenges: Can this floor be saved? – in our loft.

Concrete Artisans Leaving Lasting Imprint in San Antonio

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SAY Si, where art is spoken.

Z. Smith ’12

Conventions come and go. San Antonians barely notice their arrivals and departures. But professional artisans are getting a head start to ensure we remember the Concrete Decor Show, February 20-24.

This past week, they have been working with students to transform bare concrete around the entrance of SAY Si into a major display of the artistic side of the craft. A “river” will soon spill out of the building and over the entry ramp:

From the double-glass doors of the entrance, a micro-topping in vivid tones of blues and greens will progress down the sidewalk and descend a vertical wall to terminate in the landscaping. A team of national trainers from Miracote and Butterfield Color, aided by local concrete contractors, will install an earth-toned stampable overlay and add pattern and texture adjacent to the river mural. SAY Si students will add the finishing touches. They will illustrate native flora and fauna along the faux river bank, and permanent inscriptions of words the students find inspiring will punctuate the surrounding areas.

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Concrete cosmetology – 5,000 square feet of it – will continue at SAY Si during the conference itself. According to the show coordinators:

Project teams, pairing industry experts with workshop participants, will create the ultimate makeovers of old, worn and unattractive concrete surfaces. Each area presents a building problem or unique challenge that the team will solve using products donated by leading architectural and decorative concrete manufacturers….

Inside SAY Si, workshop participants will apply a polyaspartic coating in the public gallery where the works of SAY Si students are exhibited. Old concrete floors in several studios where classes are held will be renovated. Two different techniques will be used: grinding and polishing an existing concrete slab and resurfacing another area with an innovative new polishable overlay technology. A special metallic epoxy coating will be applied on the floor in the Black Box theater….

Board member Susan Toomey Frost can barely contain her excitement over this major focus on a sometimes overlooked craft that is part of San Antonio’s heritage. Jon Hinojosa, artistic and executive director of SAY Si, is thrilled over the makeover because:

This project will not only showcase creative concrete master craftsmen, but allow our students to participate and learn a new art form.

And:

SAY Si is a family connected through art.

S. Ramos ’11

Update on February 22, 2012:

In addition to the ongoing workshops dramatically changing the look of SAY Si, Thom Hunt and Mark Whitten are leading a workshop sculpting a realistic-looking Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur at Booth 1309 at the Concrete Décor Show at the Convention Center.

Members of RAT, or Rock Carvers, Artists and Themebuilders, built the basic form in advance of the workshop, during which participants learn how to sculpt the details and add texture. 

After the conference, Mikey, the 10 ½ foot tall dino measuring 29 feet from nose to tail, will be a gift destined to become a landmark on the south side of the Witte Museum adjacent to an entrance to Brackenridge Park.

Update on February 23, 2012:

Click here to see a slideshow of SAY Si’s new waterfall fountain and flooring and the birthing of the dino, actually named Tally, destined for the Witte.