Editor’s note: For Dallas Arts Month in April, this is one of a series of stories from The Dallas Morning News examining how North Texas artists and arts groups are coping and moving forward one year after the start of the pandemic.
— To see more from our Art and the City 2021 collection, click/tap here.
One year ago in April, everything changed. It was Dallas Arts Month, but only in name. The parties were canceled, the galleries emptied and the stages went dark. Our staff (now working via Zoom, of course) scrapped our entire annual “Art and the City” special package as planned. Instead, grappling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, we refocused the project and asked more than 100 North Texas artists to tell us how they were coping and still creating.
Now, many anxious and exhausting months later, we’re checking back in with some of those same artists for an update on how they’re making it all work. In fact, this year’s “Art and the City” is about what’s new, what’s next and what’s possible. Staff writer Michael Granberry even reports on a “silver linings playbook” of sorts that has emerged from local arts leaders.
As for the photos you see here (and in our April 4 print edition), they’re special also. Dallas designer, musician and writer Teddy Georgia Waggy was unforgettable atop last year’s print issue with her witty, defiant handmade mask.
We asked her to do a follow-up cover for us. We knew from her first conceptual drawing, it was perfect. Waggy used a hot-pink tandem mask (akin to an umbilical cord) to convey how “the arts community has found new ways to both connect with and protect each other.” Appearing in the images with her are Dallas performance artist Colton White, Denton musician and visual artist Lorelei K and the photographer, Dallas’ Adrian Smith.
How do artists survive and (eventually) thrive again after all we’ve endured? Keep creating. Our city depends upon it.
At the end of this post, you’ll find links to our team’s stories examining how North Texas artists and arts groups are coping and moving forward one year after the start of the pandemic. And, of course, here’s everything you need to know about this year’s Dallas Arts Month.
But I want to end here with this: Our featured artists Teddy Georgia Waggy and Colton White wrote a poem about their experience this past year as North Texas creatives. We share it with you here.
COMMENTARY
North Texas artists have something to say — as only they can
By Teddy Georgia Waggy and Colton White
There was something in the air.
Or was it on the surface?
Bubbles were made to replace ones burst.
Time stretched; hours were cut.
We cut our hair to kill the stretch
In a place built by people,
but not for people,
we stopped
long enough to notice there was something in the air, conditioning.
Outside, communities picked up where churches left off
Lit candles and rekindled
What people built was umbilical.
But then, again, silence speaks louder than squares
So the binges on Baldwin went back to Billy clubs.
Feeling so close and yet so, we longed to go back to
What?
To our old lover Normal
who only takes one language,
who only changes when you’re fixed to leave,
who hears a scream and goes to sleep,
who asks about a day through gritted teeth, everbraced for the ‘awful’ truth behind ‘good’ lies,
who makes no contact with the eyes that live on streets and checkout lines
But thanks you for the drink.
Those eyes are often artists, delivering and serving,
And now they’re quitting the calling after too many years being asked to eat ‘exposure.’
So we’re feeding each other, when and how we can; trading time, swapping sanity.
In a farewell state half a million goodbyes deep, countless losses of mind and will,
Will we learn to admit when we’ve taken a hit?
Admit it with sweat spilled on dance floors, our parties our wakes
Will we learn to stop chasing our own tales and move forward from our old man Normal?
Now,
So close to being close
So close to being closed
We learn to ask and keep asking:
What do you need to be fed?
About this poem: “This is for everyone feeling the edge of things after a long year, and it is especially for the artists who are running out of options,” Waggy says. “We are living through a seismic death age, and we need our creative minds to midwife this massive grief, and help cultivate new life.”
Find more Arts & Entertainment stories from The Dallas Morning News here.
