• KERA radio story:

• COMING NEXT WEEK: Video interviews w/the architects

• Dallas Observer slide show

• Expanded online story:

The four renowned architects behind the Winspear Opera House and the Wyly Theatre are in town this week for the opening galas and public forums discussing their designs. Initial responses by the media to the two new halls that make up the AT&T Performing Arts Center have stressed how they seem to be polar opposites.

The Wyly was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus. Critics have said it feels rough and industrial yet also futuristic — with its skin of aluminum tubes, its concrete bunker lobby (below) and its heavy reliance on technology to re-shape the theater's auditorium.

The Winspear Opera House (above), on the other hand, was designed by Norman Foster and Spencer de Grey. The ruby-red building is extremely polished and contemporary. But the Winspear is also a traditional, 18th-century opera house. Old-fashioned, in its way.

It’s almost as if the two buildings represent a clash of designers’ egos, a desire to set themselves apart by facing in different directions. Classic cases of "starchitecture."

As Koolhaas puts it, contrasting his work with Norman Foster’s: “If Foster is me, we have no interest in being mini-me.”

Yet all four architects strongly emphasize how their decisions were not shaped by competitiveness or personal tastes. Partly, both buildings are responses to the downtown Dallas environment — even as they may seem designed to stand out from it. Koolhaas notes that most buildings downtown are skyscrapers. So he made the Wyly vertical — a skyscraper theater, a downtown theater. He had other reasons, of course, but after all, "vertical organization" (his favorite term for skyscrapers) is a very American invention.

For Norman Foster (right), fitting the Winspear into the cityscape was crucial.

FOSTER: “It’s a response to its place, downtown, the grid, the climate, the big umbrella. It’s a statement about Dallas. It is of its place. That – if I had to single one thing out – would be for me, really important.”

Just as important, the architects developed the two buildings out of long-term collaborations with their clients, the Dallas Opera and the Dallas Theater Center. So the designers say the buildings reflect the deeply-held principles of those organizations – more than any architect’s whim.

The Wyly Theatre, for instance, was initially going to be built in stone. That’s because the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Meyerson Symphony Center all use stone. Apparently, stone is what we use for cultural buildings in North Texas. There were also plans to use other expensive materials throughout the Wyly.

But as discussions progressed, those plans for glossy, high-ticket surfaces were not as important to the Theater Center board as their commitment to a fully flexible space, a theater that can change its basic layout. So the glamor items got jettisoned.

KOOLHAAS (left): “In the end, the money went into the performance of the building. And I think that was a very conscious choice of the clients, and I really endorse that because it has a wonderful quality of a working environment, almost a factory.”

Just a block away, no one would mistake the Winspear Opera House for a factory. But as grand or flashy as it might seem, the Winspear is intended to be friendly, to encourage social interactions. This holds true from the solar canopy outside, providing shade for café diners, to the grand staircase inside with its remarkable views of the Arts District. In opera, the staircase is where people gather to see and be seen.

Spencer de Grey explains

DE GREY: “We hope that this building will be a welcoming building that will invite everyone in, sort of breaking down the barriers between the outside and the inside, making this a democratic building where people feel at ease and to encourage a new audience for opera because I think that’s very important for the future of opera.”

In fact, both buildings employ clear glass to emphasize their"openness." All four architects are also united in commending their clients for sticking to those principles — through the long process that’s led them all to this week’s openings.

KOOLHAAS: “It’s exciting to do an experimental building in America today.”

WEEKS: "Why?"

KOOLHAAS: “Can’t you guess? And not only in America. These are not particularly experimental times. And therefore, it’s a sign of incredible courage, of the kind of people who initiated this.”

KERA's BJ Austin reports on the dedication of the AT&T Performing Arts Center this week.

• KERA radio story:

• Expanded online story:
  

The eyes of the arts world are on Dallas this week as a 30-year-old dream for the downtown Dallas Arts District comes true.  The district will be basking in accolades during dedication ceremonies this morning.

After days and days of rain, workers had to scrape mud off Flora Street in the center of the Arts District to get it ready for opening week. Dallas is touting its 68-acre downtown Arts District as the largest in the world with the opening of the Winspear Opera House, the Wyly Theatre and the renovated Annette Strauss Artists’ Square, for outdoor performances.  The City Performance Hall is to be completed next year.

AT&T Performing Arts Center CEO Mark Nerenhausen says people are taking notice.

Nerenhausen:  "You know there’s a full page story in the New York Times about the curtain in the theatre; not the buildings, just the curtain alone.  That really says something when the New York Times writes a full page story about the curtain in the Opera House.

Tickets for early performances are going fast. Arts District Executive Director Veletta Forsythe Lill says the Arts District will redefine the arts in Dallas and Dallas in the cultural world.

Lill:  "There’s so much energy right now.  I feel the arts scene in Dallas accelerating. You’re seeing literally all of these changes come alive at one time."

Phillip Jones, President/CEO of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau is just back from trips to New York, Washington DC and San Francisco. He says everyone was talking about the new venues designed by world-renowned architects. Jones says this is a game-changer for the city.

Jones:  "Dallas is well known as a sports town. We’ve never been known, per se, for arts and culture. The performance venues that are coming on line will round out the product from the arts the cultural perspective; but also conventions and meetings. We have the most unique and some of the most beautiful buildings available in the country today for private parties and events. And I think that’s going to give us a competitive edge."

Mark Nerenhausen says it’s impossible to put a dollar figure on anticipated economic impact. But he says thriving arts districts have transformed other cities in many ways. He expects Dallas to draw top artists, national and international tourists, and invigorate the arts citywide.

For more information on the Arts District happenings or for more background and videos on the individual buildings, check out our new micro-site dedicated to the district.

Art&Seek is happy to partner with the Office of Cultural of Affairs to help you take advantage of Free Night of Theater2009. In the coming weeks, we'll be posting a guide to what's available to help you pick the show best for you. And we'll keep you up to date as new shows are added. Keep reading for a primer on this year's event:

• KERA Radio story:

• Expanded online version:

If you comp them, they will come.

That’s the idea behind Free Night of Theater, which lets theaters give away tickets to their shows on select nights.

Last year, some 5,000 tickets were given away by Dallas theaters, mighty fast. And the strategy seems to have worked.

Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs Director Maria Munoz-Blanco says that nearly half of those who picked up a free ticket last year came back and bought a ticket to another performance.

BLANCO: “There’s a lot of great theater in our community, and if we can get people to go, check it out, try it once, I think the likelihood of people returning is pretty high.”

About 20 theaters are offering tickets this year. One of the reasons for the program’s success is that the groups band together to create a buzz about theater.

Undermain Theatre gave away tickets last year and will do so again this year. The company’s artistic director, Katherine Owens, compares Free Night of Theater to the famous Got Milk ads. No individual dairies are mentioned, but all of them benefit.

OWENS: “This is a perfect example of good sector-based advertising, where people say, ‘Free night of theater’ Not my theater, your theater, or another theater. But Free Night of Theater.”

Last year, all of the tickets were released in one day. That led to a high number of no-shows.

This year, there will be five giveaways. Tickets will be released on Mondays for performances the following weekend.

You’ll be able to reserve those tickets beginning October 5 by visiting the Free Night of Theater Web site.

Visit the Art&Seek blog for a list of participating theaters, their shows and free dates.

Emma Rodgers ran Black Images Book Bazaar for 30 years.  Since its closing in 2007, she has kept busy as a full-time volunteer, working with causes such as the African American Male Achievement Bowl (to be held next year), Rites of Passage Program for Girls, Inc (leading tours to Ghana), the Irma P. Hall Theater Festival for middle and high school students, and the African American Museum in Fair Park. And that's just a sampler. She even has an award named for her, the EMMA, honoring writers of Black romantic fiction.

On Saturday, TeCo Theatrical Productions will host a blow out bash at the Bishop Arts Theater Center to celebrate Miss Emma's 65th birthday. The event is sold out, but you can wish Miss Emma an early happy birthday with this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: Your life has had such a positive impact on the careers of countless authors – have you ever been tempted to write a book yourself?

Emma Rodgers: Sure, if I could stop volunteering. My daughter-in-law Kenya says I need to learn how to say no. When I came on the board of TeCo in March 2009, I said that it was the last new organization I would volunteer with. Then David Robinson Jr. with DCCCD, creator of the African American Male Achievement Bowl, contacted me about serving on the steering committee. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to infuse the competition with some of my burning questions. For example, there are only four canopy walkways in the world - name the countries each of these are found in; or, Argentina is named after what chemical element?

A&S: What is your all-time favorite book?

E. R.: My all time favorite book is always the book I’m reading. Now I’m reading Douglass’ Women, a novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes about American hero, abolitionist, former slave Frederick Douglass and his two women who loved him – his black wife and his white mistress.

A&S: If given the power and resources, what changes would you make to improve the current state of the African American literary community in North Texas?

E. R.: I would establish a foundation or work with a foundation that is committed to literacy and other organizations such as Project Manhood that works with students. This organization would work with established organizations (sororities, fraternal organizations, churches) that have a youth component to organize book clubs, take the children to the Dallas Children’s Theater, exhibitions at museums like the "George Washington Carver: An Extraordinary Man with a Mighty Vision” at the African American Museum in Fair Park.

If I had the resources, my next project would be to fund a “Reading to the Womb” series. We would be stationed in county hospitals, at Head Start Centers, early childhood development centers on college campuses, and church and community preschools. In other words, places where you are likely to find pregnant women. We would establish some kind of reward system, like Earning by Learning for the parent.

A&S: If you could speak for one minute to the 15-year-old Emma – yourself, 50 years ago - what would you tell her?

In a power speed minute – like those disclaimers that are made at the end of a product that has 20 side effects:

You have to ask the right questions – this pearl of wisdom is inspired by Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. All that glitters in not gold – the moral of the story in Zora Neale Hurston’s novella The Gilded Six-Bits. My happiness is mine – the converse of what a Toni Morrison character said in Sula. The character said, “My loneliness is mine” – which means I’m responsible for my loneliness and conversely I’m responsible for my happiness. Nothing in life is free – you pay a price now or later. Everything is not as it appears – look for a deeper meaning, look beyond the surface, peel the onion back. Take care of your temple - eat right, plenty of fruits and vegetables, make water your beverage of choice, don’t drink coffee or smoke, consume only legal substances, exercise and walk.

Read the newspaper, and listen to the radio. I’m an NPR junkie. My 41-year-old son listens to NPR because that’s all he heard growing up. Now to get the 22-year-old to model her mother’s behavior regarding the radio will be a coup. But I must say that she does have 90.1 programmed in her car, so we are moving in the right direction. Her godmother, Sybil, also has it programmed in her car radio, so that when we are out and about I can listen to NPR. I have it programmed in my husband’s car also.

Know your directions – north, east, south, west. Always have a pen and paper in your purse, backpack, car. Use your initiative. Don’t wait for someone to ask you to do something. Take charge when you see that something needs to be done. Don’t take everything personally. It’s a big world – everybody is not looking or thinking about you. Don’t let anyone limit your ability to grow. Life is what you make it.

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.

Photo by Diana C. Vargas Martinez.

As an eighth grader at W.E. Greiner Middle School in Dallas, Maria Lupe Vargas won a music scholarship. The scholarship was created specifically for Greiner by the late Martha Vaughan in honor of her son, Stevie Ray, who died in a plane crash in 1990. Before becoming a legendary guitar hero, Stevie Ray grew up in a musical family in Oak Cliff – just like Lupe Vargas.

Today Lupe brings the musical erudition full circle. She teaches orchestra and mariachi at her junior high alma mater, and on October 4th, Lupe Vargas will be an honored guest at the 15th Annual Stevie Ray Vaughan Remembrance Ride and Concert. First, she is this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: Is there something special about the cultural climate of Oak Cliff that produces musicians?

Lupe Vargas: I think that Oak Cliff makes you close to your family. Family is everything in my book. They were and always are there for me for any kind of support, and being a musician, you really need all the support you can get. They drove me to my lesson, to the performance, to the rehearsal. I needed particular clothing for performances, they had to sign permission slips, I needed instrument rental money… Without a caring family, it's really hard to get these things. I believe Oak Cliff promotes a sense of unity and culture. It allows all cultures to express themselves.

A&S: How did you first hear about the Stevie Ray Vaughan Memorial Scholarship?

L. V.: My teacher, Mr. David Large (now at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts) informed the orchestra class at Greiner that scholarships were being offered for students who planned to continue taking music throughout high school. I was very excited to think that at age 14, I could receive a scholarship that would benefit me in college, and make my parents proud.

A&S: What has your musical life been like between the time you were a student at Greiner and your return here as a teacher?

L. V.: As you know, I now teach at my alma mater, Greiner! I love it there! Since Greiner, I continued on to Molina High School where my mother and I literally began the orchestra program. Throughout high school I took free private lessons from a violinist from the Dallas Symphony, Sho-mei Pelletier, through the Dallas Symphony's Young Strings Program. The Program introduced me to summer chamber music camps and also gave me opportunities of performing at the Meyerson Center. I also played in the New Conservatory of Dallas Orchestra directed by another musician from the Dallas Symphony, Arkady Fomin.

I went on to the University of Texas at Arlington where I had a music scholarship. I majored in Music Education and took private lessons, played in the orchestra, and also joined a mariachi band on the side. The mariachi band helped economically as I was in college and needed the extra money for gas. My uncle Mando taught me how to use my knowledge of music and apply it to my Hispanic culture music, norteno music. I initially played the violin and he played the bajo sexto (12 string guitar), then I began to take interest in the button accordion, learning it by ear, norteno style. We eventually took on gigs at quinceaneras, weddings and private parties. We made it a family affair. My mother sang the second voice, my uncle sang the first voice and played the bajo sexto, my brother played the electric bass and I played the button accordion as well as the violin.

A&S: What made you decide on teaching orchestra and mariachi?

L. V.: Since I love orchestra and mariachi, and I play in a professional mariachi on the weekends, why not start a student mariachi at Greiner? The school already owned a guitarron and a vihuela and some guitars. These instruments are the heart of mariachi. There are so many talented students at Greiner – it gives them another ensemble to play with that is a little more relaxed than orchestra. It also keeps them off the streets and makes their families happy, playing music from their culture.

A&S: Can you give us a quick primer on what makes good mariachi?

L. V.: A good mariachi is attitude. Also, the more, the merrier! People are wowed by the size of the Greiner mariachi; we usually have seven guitar players, two guitarrones, one or two trumpet players and ten violins! Yes!

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.

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A few weeks back, we interviewed North Texas Business for Arts and Culture CEO Katherine Wagner for the Art&Seek Q&A. This week, she takes a turn answering questions from Krys Boyd on a recent episode of Think TV.

Think airs Friday at 7:30 p.m. on KERA (Channel 13). It airs again Wednesday at 1:30 a.m.

Downtown Ben Wheeler: Moore's Store, the Flying Fish Gallery and Dan Harrison's Custom Knife Shop (l to r)

• KERA radio story:
  

• Expanded online story:

Ben Wheeler is not much more than a bend in the road 12 miles east of Canton. You can tell the town is small. It’s named after its first mailman – from back in the 1870s. Benjamin Wheeler delivered the mail on muleback from Canton. But by the 1930s, Highway 64 had bypassed Ben Wheeler, and soon, the town got even smaller.

Stephen Giles has lived nearby for 11 years.

GILES: “How come Bonnie and Clyde left it standing like this? [Laughs.] No, that was just a joke. It had a few stores. They were rusty and falling down and people didn’t have hope for it.”

Then Brooks Gremmels came back, and he's turning Ben Wheeler into its own arts district.

Brooks Gremmels (left) talking out in front of Moore's

Born nearby in Tyler, Gremmels moved to Dallas, worked as a beer distributor and concert promoter, founded his own data service company. In his 50s, he took up racing motorcycles; he even won some sprint championships and established Shogun Motorsports, his own autoparts company — and racing sponsor. Almost by accident, because of some gas leases he held, Gremmels became a multi-millionaire. At 60, he and his wife Rese decided to retire back in East Texas.

Then they saw Ben Wheeler.

BROOKS: “You looked up here and you had this poor, falling-down derelict town. And I thought, Well, maybe I could spend a little money and clean up the town. One thing led to another. Every time I cleaned something up, the neighbor next door offered to sell their property.”

Gremmels created a development company and non-profit foundation and bought up most of the unincorporated town. He started restoring Ben Wheeler to its 1935 heyday. He renovated a couple of old storefronts and began luring just a few, hand-picked artisans — with rents of one-dollar a month. So far, the artists include Dan Harrison, an esteemed custom knifemaker, and P. A. Geddie, publisher of County Line magazine.

[sound of tinkling doorbell]

Randy Martin (right) is a kinetic metal sculptor. Gremmels got him to open the Flying Fish Gallery in May.

MARTIN: “ ‘Course, when you meet somebody like this, you kind of got your radar up. You know, 'OK, there has to be something in it for him and his wife.' But the longer it went on, the more we were convinced that this guy was real.”

In person, Gremmels is hyper with energy and enthusiasm. [sound of car ignition] We take off in his Dodge Viper, one of dozens of sports cars and motorcycles he owns. We pass the new fire station that Gremmels gave the town. Zipping by an empty field, Gremmels shouts, it's going to be a six-acre lake someday. We cruise past some of the 15 homes he's bought up in the area — some of them will become bed-and-breakfasts, until Gremmels can figure a way to put in a small hotel. The entire town uses septic tanks; the hotel will require a sewer system.

Then Gremmels pulls up in front of an abandoned, cinderblock warehouse. It's an old sweet potato shed, the roof gone, weeds growing up inside, hip deep. There used to be dozens like it here — from back when sweet potatoes were a major crop in the region. Gremmels hopes to save this one by turning it into — a motorcycle museum.

BROOKS: “It’ll be a 6200-square foot museum. There’ll be motorcycles hanging from the ceiling and leathers and we’ve got a 1952 soda fountain.”

Gremmels insists that when he started buying up Ben Wheeler, he really had no plan. He’s making up this tiny arts colony as he goes along. One reason he bought up so much property, he says, is that he feared someone else might move in and put in a store or restaurant that wouldn't mesh with the small cluster of cafes and arts shops he's hoping to cultivate. He doesn't want people moving in and "selling painted toilet seats."

What Gremmels is trying to do — using the arts to revive a downtown — is basically what Dallas and Fort Worth and any number of American cities are spending millions to figure out. But Gremmels has a closer, more modest model than Lincoln Center or Philly's Avenue of the Arts. Eight miles east of Ben Wheeler is the small town of Edom, which held its first arts festival in 1971. It’s now a tourist stop, an arts-and-crafts community of potters, painters and cafes.

Just from reading all this, artists may already be trying to get Gremmels on the phone — especially considering those low-low rents. But they also might want to consider the fact that low overheard doesn't mean high income (and that Gremmels has only a handful of storefronts up and running). Where will Ben Wheeler's customer base come from? Why would any arts patron try to find this forgotten little corner five miles from I-20?

But Gremmels says he’s not worried about whether people will eventually come to Ben Wheeler. That's because Ben Wheeler happens to sit halfway between the art festivals in Edom and the first-Monday antique fairs in Canton.

[guitar and crowd noise]

It’s Thursday night, and we’re at the weekly jam session that Gremmels throws for the town. He's been doing it since last September and normally, it's been held at the Pickin' Porch, an old house that Gremmels had trucked to a little downtown park in Ben Wheeler for use as a stage. But because of the summer heat, they've moved the music-making indoors to Moore's (left), the former general store that Gremmels is turning into a restaurant. Seventy people are here tonight, 12 musicians from around the area are onstage — a sax player, a fiddler, an accordionist and nine guitarists, including Stephen Giles. During breaks, townspeople regularly come up to Gremmels or Rese and ask them when the restaurant will open — what this evening needs is some good food and beer.

The pick-up band segues from Jerry Lee Lewis to the "Orange Blossom Special" to Rockin' Sydney. The musicians — most of whom have never met before — happily let Gremmels sit in, and he honks on his harmonica and howls through “House of the Rising Sun.” The musicians and audience members tease him about his enthusiastic, stomping performance, and Gremmels laughingly admits that no one would let him sing if he didn’t own the place.

He looks to be having the time of his life.

[music fades]

BROOKS: “Last year at the 4^th of July, we had our first festival, we had about 2500-3000 people here. Bands played all day. And there were so many people saying thank you, and I was home that night, laying in bed. Rese asked me, what was going on. And I said, I finally figured it out. This is the payoff. And I figured out for the first time in my life what I’m supposed to be doing. I’d had a measure of success in some things. But it never was very fulfilling, and I always thought, golly, is that all there is? Right now, it’s the doggonedest feeling."

"I know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Moore's, looking in from the outside: Thursday, 10:15 pm

Even in a down economy, there are businesses that want to be involved in the arts. And especially in a down economy, there are arts groups who could use a hand from the business community. But how do the two sides meet?

Enter Katherine Wagner.

Wagner is the newly appointed CEO of North Texas Business for Culture and Arts. The group is a matchmaker of sorts, with a goal of linking businesses with arts groups. But the idea isn’t to just have a corporation write a check to an organization that needs funds. The NTBCA also strives to transfer the expertise of area business leaders to local arts administrators through programs like Leadership Arts and On My Own Time. Wagner says forming a bond is usually the key to eventual financial support.

“If you begin with really finding ways to reach individuals and bring them in – have them know you, have them be a part, a lot of times the dollars follow that way.”

Wagner talked about the challenges of her position during a recession and how she goes about finding those business to arts group matches as part of this week’s Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: For those unfamiliar with NTBCA, how would you describe the organization’s mission?

Katherine Wagner: We work with businesses in a lot of different ways to build their capacity to impact the arts – specifically arts organizations more than individuals. So, for example, Leadership Arts is a program we’ve been doing for about 20 years, and we’ve probably had over 900 graduates of Leadership Arts by now. … During Leadership Arts, we have corporations that send leaders that they select, and those leaders meet once a month. The program is a hybrid, where part of it is introducing them to arts sites and arts organizations that they might not have had access to otherwise and having arts leaders talk to them. The other part is pretty rigorous, where we bring in experts that are knowledgeable in non-profit management – specifically in arts administration. And we talk to them and provide instruction on how to be the best board member possible.

A&S: How does NTBCA get linked up with local businesses? Do you approach them, or do they come to you?

K.W.: It’s a little bit of both. It is some word of mouth. We also have programs where businesses will become involved sort of as a tip-toe in. They’ll decide that they want to be involved in On My Own Time. An organization might participate in that and then decide there are other things they want to become involved in, and then they join and become involved in other aspects of the company. Some of it is we will find somebody that we think, oh, we really need to have that person or that company on our board. And we’ll go make a presentation to them and say, this is what we’re doing, and this is what our vision is, and this where we’d like to be, and this is what we’re doing now if you’d like to be involved. It’s amazing how many people who are involved in business have secret arts lives.

A&S: With the economy the way it is, has NTBCA participation been a hard sell?

K.W.: It’s not easy right now. It’s not as though everybody else is having a hard time and we’re having an easy time. But there just isn’t that much money around. So what we’re really trying to do is be very sensitive to what it is that they’re trying to do. What are the resources that they can share with the arts? And we’re really trying to provide things that are keeping with what their goals are: We want are employees to bond. We want are employees to be a part of the community. Or we want to get our name out as supporters of arts but also working with children. So I think customization is the thing. And innovation.

A&S: Before holding your current job, you worked at the Dallas Visual Art Center, Trammell Crow and the Dallas Museum of Art. How do you think working at those places prepared you for this position?

K.W.: They each took the arts and looked at them sort of like the parable of the elephant. You know, the person touched the trunk and said, “It’s kind of like an old snakey thing.” You know that old parable. At Trammell Crow, I was looking at arts from the business side. Especially when they were beginning the Arts District, as one of Mr. Crow’s visions, they were very committed to the arts. I think that was a great example of a company envisioning what a city center could look like. I think the [DMA] sets the standard for all arts organizations in that everything is done so well. For example, data basing or collection management is so carefully done there. … And the Dallas Visual Arts Center, which preceded the Contemporary, was a wonderful organization. It was founded by Patricia Meadows and Judy Hurst, and that was an organization that was absolutely, 100 percent motivated towards supporting visual artists and had a fantastic board of directors. So to me, that was a model of everybody working together to make something happen, and I think it was really successful.

A&S:  The proposed city budget for Dallas trims more than 20 percent of the funding to arts and culture groups. How can NTBCA help make up for that shortfall?

K.W.: Well, as a parallel to the OCA and the Library merging, companies have been merging. So, there are just fewer dollars all the way around government-wise and business-wise to give to the arts. So what we’re trying to do is look at things that companies have to offer – knowledge that they have to offer, goods and services that they have to offer – that they want to offer in lieu of having lots of cash.

A&S: The budget trims in Dallas have made the most news of late. What is your sense of the funding situations for the arts in other North Texas cities?

K.W.: I think other cities in North Texas are also being pressed. There’s some talk of perhaps the TCA being sunset. What I see is this is happening all across the board. And not just in Texas. We have sister organizations across the country, and there are more drastic cuts in other communities – more than what you’re seeing. Relatively speaking, I think we could be doing worse.

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.

Artist Cara Michelle Smith loves the smell of film. The twentysomething photographer will finish her degree from the University of North Texas sometime next year, but her assault on the local art world is well under way. She is a founding member of the Kunstallationists, an art collective headquartered out of Dunn Bros. Coffee in Addison (their most recent show, Pow! Zap! Kunst!, ran one night only and included the likes of Frank Campagna, Hal Samples and Erica Felicella). On Friday night, Smith will be one of the contributing artists to SEED, the annual fundraiser to earn the operating costs for Art Conspiracy in December. Each artist was handed a coffee tin and instructed to conjure it into a lantern; the Cara Michelle Smith rendition will surely be a magic lantern, judging from her feisty responses to this week's Art&Seek Q&A:

Art&Seek: Are you a coffee drinker?

Cara Michelle Smith: I am indeed a coffee drinker. I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker until I went back to school. Then I realized I needed a way to keep myself running in the morning after pulling an acrylic all-nighter. Coffee is the tested and true means of college survival. I also like hot tea – Earl Grey is the shizznit.

A&S: Tell me about your workshop experience with Mary Ellen Mark in Oaxaca, Mexico. Was that exclusively for photographers with three names?

C.M.S.: That was absolutely amazing. She and I totally hit it off from the beginning, when we both realized we worked as tri-name artists. It was a match made in long-name heaven! Truly though, she was a great teacher and an amazing woman with tons of experience to impart on lowly photog wannabes like me. The greatest lesson I learned from her is to be more confident as a photographer. “Be bold!” she repeatedly said to me during our daily critiques. “That’s how you get the great photos!”

Works by Cara Michelle Smith

A&S: You are obviously attuned to the visual, so why did you stop watching television?

C.M.S.: Television is almost purely visual, it’s true. But when the visual completely lacks substance, I completely lack interest. To me, the screen that sits in most of our houses is a latent artistic medium waiting for the right person to harness its power and create something meaningful. I do watch movies on my television via a Netflix account, but when there is no movie to be watched, then the television sits with quiet, heavy potential until another DVD shows up in the mailbox.

A&S: What are some of the dilemmas you have to face down when you’re putting together an art show?

C.M.S.: When Andrew Tolentino and I are planning a Kunstallation event, there are definitely days when we have to talk each other off the ledge. But these are mere freak out sessions brought about by our very long to-do lists. We have been lucky to work with such an amazing network of artists, family, friends and whiskey waitresses who help make each and every show run smoothly from start to finish.

A&S: How did your SEED lantern turn out?

C.M.S.: I am pleased. The piece is called Bananas, and it has been described as very zen-like, which I think is an appropriate descriptor. I had my ups and downs with this project, but in the end I think it was a great success. This project has also rekindled my love of furniture design.

A&S: What’s so great about the smell of film? Has anyone at school caught you smelling actual film?

C.M.S.: The smell of film, or the smell of a wet lab in general, is the greatest smell ever! To me it means excitement, experimentation and lot’s of hard work that eventually pays off and makes the blood, sweat and tears totally worth it!

The Art&Seek Q&A is a weekly discussion with a person involved in the arts in North Texas. Check back next Thursday for another installment.