Calling All Art Lovers to The Dallas Design District

Calling All Art Lovers to The Dallas Design District

I listen to the news every morning as I get ready for work just like most people and for the most part it is there just as background noise and so I have an idea what the weather and traffic for that day will be like. However, this morning something caught my ear, the Dallas Design District is booming and is promptly becoming on of the “IT” places to be. Hearing this peeked my interest so when I got to work this morning I started to do a little research and found out not only is Dallas growing artistically we are growing by leaps and bounds in growth.

According to the Census Bureau, four Texas cities are among the biggest population gainers as America continued the journey to the Sun Belt in 2006 and 2007. Dallas-Ft. Worth alone added 162,000 within the last year, which as it turns out is more than any other metro area listed in the census; Houston, San Antonio and Austin were also among the top 10. Experts believe much of this expansion in the South is due to reasonably strong local economics and housing prices, which by the way are amongst the most affordable in the U.S. A state demographer from Texas recently gave an interview in which he stated, “People are running away from unaffordable housing, from the economic slowdown. I would expect Texas to stay at the top of a slowing game.”

Having read that I now understand why the Design District is growing with all the galleries moving down there. That area is also starting major renovations and will be gaining restaurants, shops and apartments. In one article I read they are expecting to have over 1,000 apartment units ready completed and ready for tenants by the New Year and we should start seeing progress within the next 30 days. These projects should really start to rejuvenate the area, which does not mean that the developers foresee or want the design and creative firms to pull out. In the Dallas art world it is the year of the Dragon….well Dragon Street that is. Just a few miles east of the Trinity River lies the funky warehouse district on or near Dragon Street. This migration of art galleries to this area is creating an easier road for them to reach their dreams. In the land of Dragon the art galleries are able to afford much larger galleries; and on a typical Friday afternoon in March the showrooms are virtually empty. Giving the viewer the feeling of having their own private art collection and allowing them to wander around the walls, the sparse nature of it all is part of the appeal.

Mr. Craighead, owner of the Craighead-Green Gallery, is thrilled with the journey the other art galleries are making to Dragon Street. He has said that he has always wanted his home town of Dallas to be more like the art scene in Los Angeles or New York. It seems that art dealer around the world, and even more so within the U.S, are taking notice of the Dallas Design District. Mr. Craighead attended a conference not to long ago in Santa Fe, N.M., where he says the focus was on Dallas and what has been happing here on Dragon Street. “I must have been asked a 1,000 times, ‘What the heck is going on in Dallas?’” Mr. Craighead, having moved to this area two years ago after having his gallery in the Uptown district for fifteen years prior, has said that the funkiness of the Dragon Street area is a sort of a bohemian blessing.

Part of the appeal to moving from Uptown down to the Design District seems to be that there is more free parking, a smaller amount of conflicting interests, and even a feeling of solidarity has flared up between the galleries. It seems from what I have read and found out the owners of the galleries have found a home on Dragon Street and do not plan on leaving it any time soon. Every six to eight weeks on a Friday or Saturday night you can go down and walk through the opening of a new exhibit, mingle with your friends, the artists themselves which tend to be local ones, or just walk around by yourself admiring what is happening to our great city.