Still life

The Deep Ellum Center for the Arts is celebrating its first year. If it can't figure out what it wants to be, it may also be its last.

A A A Comments By Annabelle Massey Helber Thursday, Sep 2 1999

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Mark Graham

Chris Kahanek, the new executive director of DECA, brings her perky energy to the difficult task of solving the art center's identity crisis.

Mark Graham

DECA board members (clockwise from top left) Amy Vercruysse, Frank Campagna, Steve Elsaesser, and Cabe Booth collectively ran the center for five months before exhausting themselves and turning over the reins to Chris Kahanek.

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Don Blanton, for all his plans, is his own piece of work, and perhaps his own worst enemy. He doesn't want another Theatre Gallery, he says, but maybe he'd take an upscale version of one. He wants a monument to Deep Ellum's past one minute and a toehold on Deep Ellum's future the next. He says he's not a blank check for the center, but promises financial backing. Paradox and pariah, hands-off or hands-on, Blanton has changed the landscape of Deep Ellum, and while he may not like everything about the new vista, he can't go home again. If that's what he's trying to do with the Deep Ellum Center for the Arts, he shouldn't even bother. But through luck or design, he now has the people in place who can make the center happen. He should keep the money coming, but, otherwise, stay out of their way.