Art and Concrete

One of the cool things about moving to a new area is finding out all the quirky stuff. Well, in my book, this falls under the quirky category. We have a great friend, Michelle, that has lived in this area for quite some time and she knows all the skinny on art galleries, museums, restaurants, garden stores, gift shops. You name it, she knows about it. One of the wonderful things she offered when we moved in to our new neighborhood was Saturday Morning Breakfast. It has become a fantastic ritual, one that she says is cheaper than therapy. Ha! So on one of these ritualistic, cheaper-than-therapy breakfast sessions, she says to me, "Hey! Have you seen the President Heads?" Now, I don't know about you, but I've never been asked such a thing, so I thought she was just joking around. And when I didn't aswer, she said it again. "Have you ever seen the President Heads??" I squeaked out a "i don't think so..." to which she eagerly replied, "They are behind Target. Let's go." Behind Target? Heads of Presidents? I completely didn't follow and had NO idea what I was going to see in the ally behind my beloved find-everything-you-need-and-then-some retail store.
One the drive over, she explained to me that there was an artist in Houston that does concrete artwork and that his warehouse slash studio was in a building behind Target. (I should have known it would be something cool like art and not gross like some csi show.) She went on to tell me that he was the one that sculpted the ginormous Sam Houston on I-45. If you've ever made that drive between Houston and Dallas, you've seen it. If you would like to read more about the artist, you can look here.

And then we drove up to this:

If you look closely, you can see a pick-up truck on the right side of the photo. That will give you a little perspective on just how huge the President Heads are and I've gotta tell ya: they are a little creepy. But cool definitely out-weighs the creepy. The fun part is walking around trying to identify each of the heads. My mom came to visit not long ago and I had to show her. Part of the fun is watching everyone's faces when you ask the question, "Do you want to go see the President Heads???" It's classic... Any way, my mom and I were going around making all the identifications when we came to one that completely stumped her. She made a few guesses under her breath and then said, "Well, my mercy. I'm just not sure." Turns out it was Bill Clinton. A very young Bill Clinton. It made me laugh.
And here's where the quirky part comes in: behind all the President Heads? You'll never guess.



The Beatles.