By: Dallas, meet Liverpool.

Dallas, meet Liverpool. — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:26:53 +0000

[...] the Arts District — well, I was, anyway — you might recall my promise to keep up with Domenic Cavendish’ series of columns for the New Statesman about “the connections between culture and [...]

By: That’s not a knife. Now THIS is a knife.

That’s not a knife. Now THIS is a knife. — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:39:54 +0000

[...] the related civic improvements, like the re-working of Flora Street?). I’ve been guilty of the same thing. Tossing around a billion dollar figure is not just bragging, though. It does give some indication [...]

By: Tom Hendricks

Tom Hendricks — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:56:47 +0000

In my opinion everything about the downtown art district is wrong. It’s elitist , conformist, and doesn’t address any real issue of the community. Nor does it revitalize anything – excluding the usual rich.
What is needed is A. A daily newspaper that covers local arts – the Dallas Morning News does a horrible job of it – some of the worst in the country. DMN if you are going to spend all your time on Hollywood and NYC arts why don’t you move there? B. an art center that is NOT for ‘prestige’ but for art. I have written about such a center over the last decade, where the builders build the building then walk away. The people of Dallas fill it with their culture. They sign up and display their art, they sign up and use the theater for performances, they invite guest speakers, set up art lessons, open it to music groups etc. It becomes whatever Dallas wants it to be, not what people with money want. C. Finally what is needed is some common sense city planning. Set up a pedestrian only walkway that goes from Downtown all the way to Fair Park and you really revitalize downtown, and Fair Part, and Deep Ellum in between. Downtown Dallas could become the greatest pedestrian mall in the world simply by getting the cars out of Main, Commerce and Elm.
Dallas is known to artists – artists of all kinds: musician, artists, writers, actors, filmmakers, etc. etc. – as a town that hates art and its artists. As a musician, painter, writer, and one who has covered the local arts for 15 years – that’s clear to me, and its been drilled into me by every emerging talent that flees the town in disgust. I’ve never heard it said Dallas is good to its artists. It’s not Austin, or Seattle or Boston or New Orleans. It’s not even 2nd or third tier. It’s reputation is clear – it hates arts and does nothing to promote it except that prestige thing – a show for society. A brick facade is a good symbol. But art is so much more. Too bad this town has yet to learn that. It’s paper turns its back on local arts, its radio marginalizes its music to Sunday night dead air time, and local art doesn’t count cause its not from somewhere else.
We can sum it up in one word ‘provincial’. Dallas is provincial in every aspect of the way it treats it’s artists.
I see Dallas as one day being the arts center of the world. I’ve written about it extensively. Yet for that to come to pass there must be some major changes!

Comments on: We’re building it, will they come?

By: Dallas, meet Liverpool.

By: That’s not a knife. Now THIS is a knife.

By: Tom Hendricks