 Well, good morning. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming on this beautiful August morning. I tried to get the temperature down a little bit, but it's not possible on these days. But I will tell you that it's... I appreciate you coming out today. And thank you for joining us to celebrate the opening of the vase with nine flowers. And Mr. Sorrells, James Sorrells, we're delighted to have this exhibit here. And more about that in a few minutes, but I wanted to recognize you and your partner Charmaine. Thank you very much for attending. We appreciate it very much. This work of public art is kind of, for me, a kind of refreshing respite, I guess, from what we've been dealing with, as Betsy will tell you that throughout the city. But this is... public art is something that makes us smile and feel a little lighter in the day as we kick off our day and drive down this boulevard, which we finally, finally, finally, finally got finished. So thank you very much for that, Mayor, and we'll move right along on that. But I wanted to tell you that this piece of public art will certainly enhance this boulevard both visually and culturally. I think it's the 137th, is that what it is? Is that right? 137th piece of public art in our city. And more to come, but creativity and, like I said, the ability to enlighten our minds just a little bit is what it's all about. And that's what we enjoy about it. The ethnic diversity of our art, all of the wonderful thought processes that I cannot creatively put my mind out. But thank you again, Mr. Sarls, for making it possible that we would have this wonderful piece here in our city. And kind of as the entrance from one side of this cultural district. There are several community members that have a lengthy list here who have given their time and talent to this project. And I'd like to recognize them by name. So it's Mike Groomer, Karen Wiley, Van Romans, Patricia Riley, Eric Lee from the Kimball, Maggie Adler, Andrea Carnes, Lee Hallman, Susan Urschel, Sam Duncan, Jennifer Kassler Price, Bill Campbell, who's here this morning, Kirk Slaughter, our city consultant Todd Buckingham, and city staff Mike Weiss. All of those folks and many more have had the opportunity to jump into this program. And it's certainly well worth their effort and certainly well worth my time and your time to express our appreciation to them. It's indeed also my pleasure this morning to introduce our mayor, which we had a long evening last night again, but we're up here ready to go again this morning. So Betsy, thank you for coming out this morning and give you the microphone here just for a second. That's long enough. I can't take him anywhere and you ought to have him in council with you. It's great entertainment, Dennis, thank you. Well, howdy. It's been much since I've been able to say howdy. You know, that's what I say to everybody in person. I wish we could have more people, but at least we're here in social distancing. Jameson's remain welcome to Fort Worth. We're thrilled to have you. And, you know, we're in the pandemic and things are different, but business and art goes on. And particularly art because it enriches our life as Dennis said so much. Our cultural and arts program and our institutions of art here in Fort Worth are bar none the best in the world. World-class museums, world-class art. I'm incredibly proud of our public art program and what all of you have helped us accomplish. This project is a part of the 2004 bond election. You know, sometimes we move slow, but when we move slow, we get the best products right now. And right now there are 49 additional public art projects underway in the city. And I can't wait to see each and every one of them. James created the perfect gateway for the cultural district. We're really excited about it. There's a saying in Texas that most things will sting you, stick you or prick you. This is designed to be a little bit reminiscent of some of our prickly cactus flowers and other flowers, but I don't think it's going to prick you. I just think it's going to delight you. James Searles is an internationally recognized artist and strong Texas roots. You were born in Tarrell, Texas, right? And Charmaine Locke is with us today, his wife here in Fort Worth. And she in her own right is a renowned artist. So we were pleased to have both of you working on this. James has received the Texas Medal of the Arts and Visual from the Texas Cultural Trust, the Texas State of the Arts from the Texas Commission on Arts and many, many other awards. Public art shows that the community is indeed investing in the life of their citizens. And every project that we add does that. And every few years we get our public arts catalog. And I am so pleased to be able to share that with other mayors across the nation. And many of them go, hmm, we thought ours was good, but it's nothing like Fort Worth. So James, thank you for sharing your talents with us here in Fort Worth and for sharing this collection. It's my pleasure now to introduce Bill Campbell, the Commissioner for the Fort Worth Arts. Well, welcome everybody and thank you Dennis for the weather. We've got to be glad to be here this morning. Exactly. We really are delighted to have such an internationally recognized sculptor as James here. And he was terrifically good to us to make this available to us at a time that we were frankly in a conundrum before all of this started. But as Dennis said, there's projects have gone on for a long time and there were quite a few bumps along the road. But anyway, we got it. And Mayor Price covered most of the things that I was going to say. I don't know if you knew, but that's right. But James is in many, many fantastic museums around the world, including the Central Culture de Arta Contemporario in Mexico City, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., Solomon Cougenheim in New York, the Whitney in New York, and the Amen Carter Museum here in Fort Worth. And we're just thrilled to have this. It really elevates the city's collection and I think it'll be loved for many, many years. James. Thank you guys. I'm moving a little slow. I was using a chainsaw and kind of did something I shouldn't have done. I think, you know, in 1984, Time Magazine critic wrote an article or a review of me and I rushed out to get it the next morning. Our man and I were in New York in Soho and when I rushed out, there was a Time Magazine laying in the middle of Broome Street and the wind had blown it open to the page that my piece was. And a big giant dump truck full of bones had just ran over it. I saw it run over it and it just tire printed it and mashed it flat. And I thought, boy, you better just stick to what you do and don't get involved in anything else, you know. I love making art. I love making art. I get up in the morning and I get to make art. I have been in many, many ways psychologically freed to do that because of a relationship I've had for 45 years with Charmaine Locke. It is nice having someone with you who can get you where you cannot get by yourself, you know. And I really, really appreciate that. She pushes me constantly. We'll walk out of the house to go somewhere and she'll look at me and say, are you going to wear that? And I'll say, well, I was. It's a vase. It's a picture. It's a vessel. It's a container. It's a bowl. It's a platter, you know. It has carried the symbolic references for the female since humans have been recording things. You know, it's the first cup of your hands. It's the cup that clay. You made out of clay. You know, it holds some kind of life-giving power. That's the nature of what a vessel does. And it's an elongated vessel like a vase, but it's still a container. You know, that's what it is. The flowers that come out of it. Listen, we've been in Texas a long time. We know about things that will sting you, bite you, stick you, or just slap you in the face when you go by. It's the nature of being here. If you can't do it here, you can't do it. You know, that's been my feeling and my attitude. And it's been a very free-wheeling place for me to function and to operate and to live. I got a lot of rewards, psychological rewards for it, and lived the way the creative life that I wanted to live. Dick Cavett asked Steve McQueen once if he wasn't a little embarrassed about making a movie called The Blob. And Steve McQueen looked at him and in all seriousness says, No, I'm not embarrassed about that. That's the best I could do at the time. And I thought, man, if we all just did the best we could do at the time, you know, that's really all a community can ask of someone. To have this here is truly an honor. I think it'll be here long, long, long after I am gone. I make art now to go outside that will last. It will last as long as you love it. And it'll be here a long, long time. And I think that when cities, institutions, museums, entities of that magnitude and nature, when they get something, they take care of it. You know, it's like giving it a home. It's going somewhere safe. It's in the safe zone for history. And I really, really am appreciative of that. And I am aware of when this started. It's been a long journey. This was not what you would call just a easy rolling path for something of this magnitude to take place. But once it started, I was patient and was patient. It moved. It got done. And it's here. And I am really, really thankful for that. And I love it. And God bless you for it worth. You're my friend. And so we should probably have a large ribbon here or a bottle of champagne since we have neither. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you very much for spending a few minutes with us this morning. And please pass along the fact that we are now open for viewing on this great piece of public art. So thanks very much.