In Dallas, Deep Ellum is known for many things and, high among these, is the public art. One man’s mural is another’s graffiti – but in Deep Ellum, colorful art rules the brick.

Yeah, right.

It has been that way for a long time. I remember going down there almost two decades ago and watching a group paint some monument-like panels erected under the highway. Each artist had a different stele to paint – all different sizes and shapes. I watched them work with jealous desire – wanting to paint something worthwhile but aware that I lacked the talent.

There was a tunnel where Good Latimer Expressway coursed below some railroad tracks which had been painted in a long string of bizarre panels. It raised quite a bit of concern when the tunnel was torn out and the street raised to ground level along where the DART station now sits.

The capstone of the old tunnel is used as a backrest for one of the Traveling Man sculptures.

Now there are as many murals as ever down there. Everything from strangeness to music and back.

Last weekend I took advantage of some surprisingly good weather to go on a long bike ride and one stretch took me through Deep Ellum. I had a compact camera in a little bag on my handlebars, so I stopped and took some shots of some of the murals. These are across from the Deep Ellum Dart station – oddly enough not far from where the old Good Latimer tunnel used to be.

So today, here are a couple works by Amber Campagna, “Bait” and “Chomp.”

“Bait” by Amber Campagna. The paint is falling off the wall – which makes it especially interesting in an odd way.

A little way farther down the wall is “Chomp”, also by Amber Campagna