A Day in the Life

Through the Lens photographically celebrates the Dallas Arts District and presages the arrival of HALL Arts Hotel.

BY STEVE CARTER

The nonpareil Dallas Arts District is a living wonder, as new tenants, organizations, facilities, neighbors, and visitors continue to arrive. It’s a constantly evolving arts hub; so capturing its essence is akin to catching lightning in a bottle. Fortunately, however, the recent Through the Lens: Dallas Arts District juried photography competition has done exactly that, and the 91 winning images from 52 local photographers and four organizations form a miraculous mosaic that illustrates the neighborhood’s artistic multiverse. Even the photographers themselves are a metaphor for the diversity of the district, with 1,050 total submissions running the gamut from amateurs, hobbyists, and students of all ages to seasoned professionals. Winners received a $500 stipend, an invitation to the competition-concluding gala, and their work will be included in the upcoming coffee-table hardbound, Through the Lens: Dallas Arts District; they’ll also receive a copy of the book. That tome will be available at Arts District gift stores, and select photos from the competition will be in the art collection of the new boutique HALL Arts Hotel, opening this fall. Publication is synched with that opening, and a copy of the book will be placed in each of the rooms. Another “win” is that proceeds will benefit the Dallas Arts District Foundation’s grants program, which endows smaller non-profits.

Nikola Olic, Bird Mirror Triangle, 2018

Ashley Mendoza, Willows through the Hep, 2018

Like so many projects in the neighborhood, collaboration was a key to the success of the competition. In this case the Dallas Arts District, HALL Group, two handfuls of corporate sponsors, not to mention the photographers, worked together on the initiative, which launched last April and concluded in September 2018. A list of the seven jurors who adjudicated Through the Lens is a true Who’s Who of arts players: Dallas Museum of Art Director Agustín Arteaga; Nasher Sculpture Center Director Jeremy Strick; Sam Holland, Dean of SMU’s Algur H. Meadows School of the Arts; and Dallas philanthropist/art collector Howard Rachofsky. Art curator and consultant Patricia Meadows and Shore Art Advisory’s Virginia Shore were Co-Chairs, while Mayor Michael S. Rawlings served as Honorary Chair.

David Worthington, Arts District Pano, 2018

Paul Sokal, Dancer #1, 2018

“Everybody who was on the jury is busy busy,” Co-Chair Patricia Meadows attests. “HALL Group’s VP of Marketing, Kymberley Scalia, had the brilliant idea of not trying to get us all together, but rather just sending us all the entries and letting us jury on our own. The photographers did a wonderful job of capturing the vibrancy, the excitement, the activity—their photography is just beautiful.” The 91 chosen images include skylines, cityscapes, nature shots, interiors, exteriors, children at play, performers, artists at work, and more, a brilliantly illuminating cross-section of views and experiences. “It’s a day in the life of the Arts District,” Meadows continues. “You can go to theater, dance, to Klyde Warren Park, to the food trucks, the DMA, the Crow, the Nasher—it’s a wonderful District.”

Entrepreneur Craig Hall of HALL Group has been invested, both business-wise and philosophically, in the Dallas Arts District for decades; in 1995 he bought the land where HALL Arts Hotel is being built, with an eye to the future. “We knew that the market wasn’t ready right away, but we knew that one day we’d want to build a hotel,” he says. “Part of what we’re trying to do with HALL Arts Hotel, and do generally as a citizen of the Arts District, is to bring the Arts District together and to enhance the knowledge about what a great jewel this is for the city of Dallas. Another goal is to increase the walkable—I want to see more people out on Flora, walking on a regular basis.”

HALL Arts Hotel itself promises to be a jewel. Located at 1717 Leonard Street, the hotel will feature 173 guest rooms, 10 guest suites, two restaurants, 6,000 feet of private event space, a heated rooftop pool, and much more, not the least of which is the world-class art collection. Through the Lens Co-Chair and longtime HALL Group art advisor Virginia Shore is curator of the hotel’s public space collection, while Patricia Meadows is curator of the photographic piece; those works, culled from the competition, will be installed in guest rooms and some hallways. Icing the underconstruction cake, sister project HALL Arts Residences is set to open in early 2020.

Another symbiotic “win” of the melding of Through the Lens and the HALL Arts Hotel is their symbolic relevance for the neighborhood. Lily Cabatu Weiss, Executive Director of the Dallas Arts District, enthuses, “What’s so great about the Through the Lens competition and the coffee-table book is that it’s a statement about where you are; it’s a sense of place. On a lot of fronts this tells visitors that the Arts District and HALL Arts Hotel are very special locations in the city of Dallas. I think that we’re going to have 24/7 life in the Arts District with this hotel. And I don’t think it’s just going to be for visitors—you could have a staycation right in your own city.”

Joseph Haubert, Morton H. Meyerson Reflection, 2018