Article by Will Milne, Wind by Texas Weather
Denton, art hates you. Or, more specifically, Matthew Hoffman’s large-scale art installation on top of Dan’s Silverleaf hates David Howard’s car.
Maybe you’ve noticed that at some point in the past few weeks, Denton’s skyline has been temporarily updated with some additional typographical work that isn’t a reference to corn kits. As a part of this year’s 35 Denton, Hoffman’s 100’ x 8’ traveling signage that spells out “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL” in all-caps was placed rather daintily on top of Dan’s Silverleaf in downtown Denton.
The part that you didn’t know was that Kevin McAlister, the designer of the board-game Mousetrap and Mother Nature, herself, were the construction workers who set up the “sculpture.” In what was to be the beginning of a calculated, long-winded scheme, the letters were placed on top of Dan’s and secured with 40lb sandbags. No screwdrivers or welding were involved.
In case you didn’t notice, last night was a particularly windy one. Not only did it bring in some colder weather, but it was also windy enough to blow the word “YOU” from the sculpture all the way down, sending both itself and two bags of sand that had been holding it in place into the cold air and right on top of Howard’s car, crushing the roof of his Toyota Carrola and causing him to question his own beauty.
Hoffman is on record saying, "I believe each and every one of us is compelled to make an impact on our world,” about his project and we bet that he’s currently wishing he would have used some different terminology because he definitely did make an impact, right guys?
The sign is now being secured with hammers, nails, screws and other fasteners by Chris Hawley and Marcus Watson. The "YOU," however, remains in pieces at the old Little Guys Movers office. At this point, it’s unsure what will become of the art installation. Will it continue to just say “ARE BEAUTIFUL,” will they replace it with the old school Santa Claus that had been on top of Dan’s around Christmastime or will they replace the entire thing with the shattered remains of David Howard’s car as a new form of performance art?
This happened later in the same evening that DCTA announced that they would in fact NOT be offering any additional service for 35 Denton this weekend. Are these events red herrings that 35 will be a mess this year? What else is gonna happen? Will Roky Erickson change his name to Roxy Erickson? Will Solange Knowles be replaced by her less talented older sister? Will Mike Seman of Shiny Around the Edges infamous orange pants be destroyed in a horrible marinara accident? Only time will tell. We suggest doing rain dances or something once an hour every hour until Thursday.
We reached out to both Dan Mojica, owner of Dan's Silverleaf, and David Howard, owner of a wrecked Toyota Corola, about the incident. Howard wanted to stress that he was definitely not upset at either Dan's or 35 Denton and Mojica was just happy no one was killed by art.