To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
—-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Mural, Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
—-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears…in…rain. Time to die.
—-Roy Batty, Blade Runner
(click to enlarge)
Mural, Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Mural, covered by “For Rent” sign
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
“When Armageddon takes place, parking is going to be a major problem.”
― J.G. Ballard, Millennium People
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
(click to enlarge)
Mural, Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato
Mural of Madison King
behind cars from the Invasion Car Show
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Mural of Madison King, by Frank Campagna
I’ve been a fan of Madison King for a while now and was glad that Frank Campagna chose her for one of the murals in Deep Ellum.
Madison King at the first Patio Session
“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems
(click to enlarge)
Mural on Main Street,
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Mural by Travis Haas
Part of the 42 Murals Project
“You know the days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Streaks from Tree Mural by Eric Mancini.
Jung said: “Proceed from the dream outward…”
It is interesting to return to the original definition of a word we use too often and too carelessly. The definition of a dream is: ideas and images in the mind not under the command of reason. It is not necessarily an image or an idea that we have during sleep. It is merely an idea or image which escapes the control of reasoning or logical or rational mind. So that dream may include reverie, imagination, daydreaming, the visions and hallucinations under the influence of drugs – any experience which emerges from the realm of the subconscious. These various classifications are merely ways to describe different states or levels of consciousness. The important thing to learn, from art and from literature in particular, is the easy passageway and relationship between them. Neurosis makes a division and sets up defensive boundaries. But the writer can learn to walk easily between one realm and the other without fear, interrelate them, and ultimately fuse them.
—-Anais Nin, The Novel of the Future, Chapter One – Proceed from the Dream Outward
Eric Mancini Mural
Dallas, Texas
The other day I rode my bike past Eric Mancini painting a mural of Jean-Michel Basquiat on a wall in downtown Dallas. Last weekend I rode back by there to see the finished work. Basquiat in on one side, and a cool stylized tree is on the other side of the liquor store sign.
I really like the murals – they are in a crackerjack location – a lot of people are going to see them.
Eric Mancini Mural
face of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Dallas, Texas
Eric Mancini Mural
Dallas, Texas
Eric Mancini Mural
Dallas, Texas
“Squint your eyes and look closer
I’m not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I’m beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you’re starving
and eating all of the words you said.”
—-Ani DiFranco
Mural
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I’d draw a big ram’s head, really messy. I’d never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.
—-Jean-Michel Basquiat
This last weekend, I dragged myself out of bed… if not exactly very early, then rather earlier than later. I thought of what I needed to do with the rapidly slipping away day and I thought, “I need some miles and some photos.”
So I packed my camera into a handlebar bag and rode to the DART station – intending on taking the next train that pulled in, no matter which direction it was going. The Red Line came first, going south, so I headed downtown.
The day was warming quickly and I didn’t feel very good – so I wasn’t going to be able to get as many miles as I wanted. I rode to Klyde Warren Park and picked up something to eat from a Food Truck, read a book, and rested for a bit. Then I headed to Deep Ellum to see what I could see.
Sometimes, it’s important to be able to trust fate, to follow your nose and see where you end up.
As I crossed Ross I saw someone up on a ladder spray painting a mural on the back wall of a building. I’m a big fan of urban murals but have rarely been able to see one actually being made. The artist was working off a photoshopped photo of the site with the design, taped to the wall. I parked my bike and dug out my camera.
The mural was being painted by an artist from Denton, Eric Mancini. He said he was Velcro-ing some artworks to the building when the owner came out and told him he had been thinking about placing a mural there. Eric was glad to comply.
The mural was a stylized Technicolor portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat. “You can tell by the hair,” Mancini said.
We chatted a bit about art, about Denton (“Denton has become what Austin thinks it is” – one of my favorite sayings), this and that. “I’ll finish this later today and then do one of my tree paintings on the rest of the wall,” he said. He needed to get painting and I needed to get some more miles so I packed up and rode off – he climbed back up his ladder.
Now, this weekend I’ll go back and take some photos of the finished work. More photos, more miles.
Eric Mancini painting a mural of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Eric Mancini painting a mural of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Design for an Eric Mancini mural of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Eric Mancini painting a mural of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 