Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery salutes Texas artists with Texas Tall Tales opening March 30, 2001 with an artists' reception from 6 - 8 PM.

Texas Tall Tales celebrates the fertile imagination of the Texas artist, from the folkloric influence of the Pecos Bill tales to the reality of life in the city. The show features 18 diverse artists who hale from all parts of our great state, some of whom relocated here to Texas where they found rich creative inspiration.

Also, Mike Cunningham, a notable North Texas sculptor, will be represented by an iconic piece which has been the root of many Texas tales and tragedies: the infamous tornado.

PECOS BILL AND SLEWFOOT SUE

When Pecos Bill asked Slewfoot Sue to marry him, she accepted, with two conditions. Bill had to buy her a gown with a big hoop skirt from Neiman Marcus, and she must ride to their wedding ceremony on Bill's big, fiery stallion, which had achieved the name Widowmaker. Bill readily agreed to the first condition, but he was nervous about the other.

"Now, honey," he said, "I'm the only cowboy in the world who has ever climbed aboard Widowmaker and lived to tell about it. He and I have arrived at a certain arrangement, but it doesn't include anybody else. Not even you, my sweet."

"If you love me," said Slewfoot Sue, "you will not oppose me in this. Widowmaker is the most magnificent horse in West Texas. No other steed is worthy to carry me in my Neiman Marcus hoop skirt to the altar. If I can't ride to the church on Widowmaker, I ain't going at all."

Bill dearly wanted to be Sue's husband, so he finally agreed.

But when Slewfoot Sue set her boot in the stirrup and mounted Widowmaker and set her spurs into his flanks, he snorted fire and bucked her high into the air. Sue sailed almost to the moon, then plunged to the earth like a meteorite. When she landed, her Neiman Marcus hoop skirt behaved like a spring and propelled her into the sky again. She fell and bounced again and again and again: Boing! Boing! Boing!

Bill tried to catch her with his lariat, but she was bouncing too fast and too high even for him. He never could get a loop around her.

So, after several days, he shot her, to keep her from starving. He loved her that much.
Retold by Bryan Woolley

Artists: Janet Buenger, Keith Carter, Stewart Cohen, Mike Cunningham (sculpture), Dornith Doherty, George Krause, Paul Greenberg, Philip Lamb, Robert Langham, Nic Nicosia, Ann Pizer, Patricia Richartds, Allison V. Smith, Ann Stautberg, Tim Tracz, Marilyn Waligore, Steve Watson, Byrd WIlliams.