Artseye '89

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . everything from the jackal oak to the coyote. These animals are within reach. They're within conceptual reach and visual reach. They're things that we can find around us.

There's plenty of work to do. When I'm through with this, there's the rodeo. When I'm through the rodeo, there's the circus. But animals can keep me occupied for the rest of my life. This community that lives around me are the most entertaining, most diverse, most contrary community that I know. We came over here because we like contrasts. The contrasts we get between ourselves as artists. Otherwise, we would be living in Richardson. And everyone's smiling, and it's over their onion depth. I have this complete flux of input all the time. Then that's what I demand to live.

And I think that's what all these other artists demand to live. They cannot stand to live anywhere else. The kind of language of man is a visual language. And it works through all languages, all humanities, I mean, from all the world around. And that is where I try to draw from. All my pieces there for a particular place, at a particular time. The title of this artwork is City Lights. And what I'm doing is lighting the city. I've got this wonderful tall space to light up. It's going to be a play of color on five floors. And it'll be easily accessible from the exterior through these windows. People won't have to be in the building to see it.

And they'll be able to see it from the central expressway and from Oglon and all that. So it's going to be a fun thing to tickle their eyes, say, drive by. I like to keep art in my salon because it's stimulating and exciting, and it's something different to look at. Besides posters of women that have hairdos that other people did. And I mean, after all, that's what we're doing here. We're just giving people haircuts and permanence and colors. And we're not pretending to be anything other than that. But it's just pleasant to go and be someplace and be stimulated by other things. It's kind of a little extra present, I think.

It's a present for me to get to be in a place that I like to be in. In the arts where you find it. My name is Jack Robbins, and I'm a painter. And I live here in Ocliffe. I grew up here in Ocliffe, and when I was really young, I used to run my bicycle around this area. And it just felt really natural for me to move back here and take up my career right here where I'd grown up. I have a studio on Davis Street.

And I'm living there because it's affordable. And I can have enough space to make my paintings. Over here, you're going to run into a different type of people, more of an individual people, apart from the big city values like you find in Dallas. The idea of people working or going about their daily life in my paintings shows the vitality and the necessity of these activities for them to get behind their life. Well, it's an atmosphere of affected calamity, clanging, bang, the kinds of things that sort of people hammering their lives out day by day. I choose the colors and the work because they're bright,

they're like the noise, they're like the atmosphere, they're like the neighborhood. It's very nitty gritty. It's very down to earth. This is originally a seat factory. And then there was a silk screen company here. We've moved in and transformed it more or less into an artist studio in a living space. I think the sound of Davis Street is kind of ever present in the traffic's always moving along this main artery which is conducive to my work because I deal with a lot of public imagery and conveying an attitude towards a public concern. My work is mostly just impulsive reflections

of what I see going on in day-to-day society, much like political cartoons or political renderings in editorial. It's very editorial of what is happening around me of the city life of what's happening in a town that's making a difference. I think if you were to ask a gallery and what my work was about, they would basically tell you that it's not saleable. It's issue-oriented for the most part although I consider myself maybe a lyrical abstractionist. I would say that Oak Cliff has been a good place for artists to develop and explore because there's a sense of community here amongst the artists. It's a territory that they've claimed for their own.

I think it's real exciting what's happening in Oak Cliff. There's a lot of renovation work going on. There's some of the most beautiful places in Dallas here. It's a wonderful, exciting place to be. I like that sense of community and being around other artists. Whether you see them every day or not, you're usually working in isolation. But to know there are others, they're plugging your way too, is real comforting. This work is totally abstract, but it came from technical illustration work of skeletons, small mammals, insects, bones, birds. I have always had an interest in science and art and have been fascinated with how economical and abstract nature actually is.

She uses such a few simple components and they're combined for a myriad of results. People tell me these dance, and some of them I believe do. Others are languid and fluid, and they're all different. I'd like the viewer to be led into my work and somehow capture the excitement of discovery and how parts fit together in balance and all these random, seemingly random parts, will hopefully fit together as a cohesive whole. There's such variety over here. There are all kinds of people here. You don't look odd on the street regardless of how you look, and there's a real sense of community. We decided to move into this area

for a lot of different reasons that we were looking for a way of involving ourselves in the arts by opening a restaurant. Opening a restaurant to us was a personal artistic endeavor. We consider this environmental art. We chose the name, the left bank, because in Dallas, this is the left bank of the Trinity River, and a lot of people don't realize there's a river in Dallas, much less a left bank of that river. In Paris, the left bank of the sign is traditionally an area that is geared not just towards the arts, but towards a more experimental form of the arts and people who are reaching out and struggling and trying to get things done. The question I guess is what is working about this community, and then who benefits from it? If you want to know the directions that your city is going to expand into, you want to know the marginal areas where growth can develop in.

Look to where the artists are. The reason that I came was part of the reality was that I could get cheap rent and cheap space, but also that the area didn't have a specific identity that you could be anonymous. You could move in and be whatever you wanted it to be. I guess artists do things with things, so it's not out of their range to go in and fix places up to change them into being habitable. You know, it's one of those places that has lost soul that is around for a short amount of time and then I don't know, reconstruction techniques, gentrification, sort of takes over and cleans up and the boutiques move in and it's gone. So people sort of feel like it's just a little space in time and things sort of inhabit. I think what was wonderful about growing up in Oak Cliff is that it was sort of like growing up,

kind of in a small town, even though kind of near evening you'd look out of your backyard and see the large skyscrapers of downtown Dallas and you knew that you were in a large metropolitan area. But still being sort of across the river, you were sort of divorced from all that and you can sort of carry on a little separate sort of community. In the very shadows of those skyscrapers, a band of backstage technicos and onstage actores bring the masks, the myths, and the magic of Hispanic theater to audiences of all ages and cultures. I founded Theatro Dallas because there was no Hispanic theater

in the Dallas community. Dallas should support Hispanic theater because we have a great Hispanic population of citizens in the city and because it's part of the cultural aspect of Texas. The real support that we give is from the Mexican American community because they are very hungry to know about the roots. So we do a little bit of everything. We educate the children, we bring classical theater and we bring contemporary theater. Every Mexican knows about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera there have been a myth for many years, kind of like John Lennon and Yoko Ono. You know, you didn't even have to say their last names.

It was Diego and Frida. We have done this play to make more understandable the work of Frida that has been exhibited at both the Dallas Museum of Art through their show or exhibit images from Mexico and with the Metas Museum. As I look at the paintings of Frida Kahlo, I can tell you that they're tremendously striking that I see a woman that is so honest with herself and therefore the world that sees her that I think she transcends being a Mexican symbol or a Mexican artist. Mexicans go through a physical

and emotional experience every time they eat. They sweat and suffer and enjoy at the same time that tells you a lot about culture. The diary of Frida Kahlo is a play that deals with the most important elements of Frida's life, which are her tremendous love and obsession for her husband Diego Rivera. You more than anyone else in the world knows how lovely I've been in this filthy hospital. Her physical pain and her work. Shortly after my boyfriend Alejandro Gomez Arias and I got on the bus, the collision. But I'm not dead. I survived. Her painting, the recent one of the main reasons for her to stay alive. Your hair changes the wind of Mexico. We want to reach low income families or children

because they seldom get to be exposed to fear. And not only do they get to see fear but they get to know more about who they are. Making more is a land of conflict and danger. I think that each one of the people that participate in a play loves their craft. The theater is one of the few forms of art that brings it all together.

The whole picture is just beautiful. It makes me feel, well, this is what I like. This is what I love. This is my life. This is my work. Shooting rubber bands at the stars may sound like a long shot but it's worked for Edie Brickell and New Bohemians all the way from the tiny stages of deep element to rock and roll stardom. We're proud to come from a place that not too many bands are known for. It's like there are real people, real music, there's art in Dallas. Throughout time somebody focused in on us. I would say that New Bohemians music is thoughtful and somewhat crystalline aloof. It's just like living. Our bass is in rock music, I guess, pop.

We rely on instincts a lot and intuition and just letting pure whatever come through. We really emphasize the song more than anything. It's kind of an organic disco song music. It's real unpredictable. A lot of stretching out and playing whatever you feel like and just being really creative. I guess our sound is different because of our taste. Really, it's all in an effort to try to make something different but something that we all like. Shooting rappers bands at the stars. Shooting rappers bands at the stars. Shooting rappers bands at the stars. They won't go that far. Shooting rappers bands at the stars basically expresses the way I felt when I first joined the band.

That's one of the very first lyrics I've ever wrote with the band. When I look back on it, I think of, I mean, it fit the whole band at the time. We felt like we were taking a real long shot. We were just shooting our bands at the stars. But it's something that we had to do. Are you all ready yet? I don't believe in hatred anymore. I had to keep the path up before. When I grew up, I'm sure there is something inside me that you never know. Like a pizza. When the band writes some, and we're so excited about, we all like it. That is so fun. I can't tell you how good that feels. And then, like, our first few times to play it for people, that's the best thing on the world.

It's like a celebration of the song. The heart parts over now, we just get to have fun with it. You've got a lot of living to do with that. You've got a lot of living to do with that. I don't write music. I can't read music. I'll get melodies in my head, and I'll come to the band and sing the song out to you, and then they'll put the music to it. Or they'll be jamming around and playing some music, and I'll sing more on top of it. I want to reach people across the board emotionally. We want to put people on a big roller coaster ride. What I love is when I hear a song, and they'll make me think of something that I've never really thought of before.

I go, oh, yeah. That happens to me every day. I can relate to that. And that's what I really want to do. I want to make things simple, and keep it that way. I swear I remember it that way. I swear I remember it that way. I swear I remember it that way. When my mind's blank, when the world seems blank to me, and it seems like there's nothing there, I try to fill it in with something positive. With my songwriter, with my career, with my life, I just want to get up in the morning, and get up quick, and do something, and do something that means something to myself,

and hopefully to other people. The wheel was a song of strength in who you are and what you're about. You feel like you're in the world to do something, to change something, to express something. I feel like we're just now, you know, the wheels have just started turning, and that hopefully it'll go on, and get bigger and better. No, I don't think shooting romance to stars is a futile effort at all. I think that if you see anything, you think it's impossible. And do it anyway, you can surprise yourself. That's it for this Arts Eye.

Thanks for coming along. Till next time, this is Judy Kelly. Bye-bye. I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I'm going to do, know what I'm going to do. I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I'm going to do, know what I'm going to do. I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I'm going to do, know what I'm going to do. I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I'm going to do, know what I'm doing. Thanks for coming along.

Thanks for coming along. Thanks for coming along.