Deep Ellum Art Park

The art park isn’t really a destination — it’s more of a place you drive or walk (if you’re into long walks under freeway overpasses) past. The art is interesting (though there aren’t THAT many pieces), but since it’s also a great hiding place for hobos and drug addicts (behind the tall cement art ‘walls’), I’m never tempted to walk through there alone. If you have dogs and live in the area, it might be on your way to the dog park though, and in that case it’s probably nice to walk through. If the overpasses weren’t there, it’d probably be a really nice park!

You know, it is actually nice to see the pillars and what would just otherwise be concrete blocks painted with some pretty cool art. I like the fact that the art really adds some character to Deep Ellum and it makes walking my dogs through the area a little less boring. I’ve also noticed that people do go out and touch up the art every so often to keep it looking nice. It’s worth taking 10 mins to walk through and see the cool paint jobs that people have done.

I can’t really write about Deep Ellum without tearing up a bit because so many of my greatest post adolescent memories took place on Dallas road trips. I have seen the likes of Ministry, Live and Frontline Assembly in Dallas in the marvelous bohemian complex that was Deep Ellum but is now literally nothing more than shell of its former self. I did happen to find a few treasures up there amongst the forsaken buildings and closed up shops. Twisted Root, Baker’s Ribs and this Art Park.
On this day the artists were busy at work on their pieces which appeared to be done on canvases on stone. The variations were numerous but they all shared a common theme. Brilliance. In this case a picture is definitely worth a thousand words and in my case at least twice that so I will leave it up to you to view them.
I just need to say that this latest generation of Dallas techies has apparently left what was the soul of this city to wither into dust. I just hope that wherever the spirit of Dallas has relocated to, they treasure it as much as I had treasured Deep Ellum in my youth.