Allie Norado
Audio By Carbonatix
Since 2015, nonprofit The Cedars Union has had something to prove. The artist incubator was built to show what’s possible when the city invests in its artists. The proving phase is over. Now, it’s executive director Emma Vernon’s job to take the mission further. She’s already made a monumental start.
On Feb. 11, The Cedars Union announced Vernon’s appointment, along with a milestone $500,000 unrestricted gift from The Eugene McDermott Foundation.
“The Cedars Union is one of the best-kept secrets in the Dallas art scene,” says the new executive director, formerly the senior director of individual giving and membership at The Dallas Zoo and prior manager of the DMA Circle membership at Dallas Museum of Art.
Vernon previously held The Cedars Union’s director of development and marketing role and was a donor long before that. She plans to use the gift to sustain operations while focusing on expanding into the historic, 50,000-square-foot Boedeker Ice Cream Factory.
Basic Needs
“Space is just, that’s one of the main things that Dallas really does not have for artists,” she says. “We see so many artists who are in unsafe conditions, who are working in un-air-conditioned studio spaces, or spaces where there are pests, or even [lacking] some of the simpler things, Wi-Fi and a sink, they don’t have running water.”
Since its founding, The Cedars Union has aimed to fill those gaps. The idea was sparked by founders and siblings Matthew and Megan Bowdon, who lost access to resources after art school. With seed money from Bowdon Family Foundation, the nonprofit opened its 7,000-square-foot proof-of-concept Annex space to give artists the basic resources they needed to create.
In practice, that includes a shared studio with large moveable tables, blank white walls for documenting work, an AV closet with photography and audio equipment, a reservable meeting room, Mac and PC labs, a 3D printer, industrial sewing machines, a woodshop, software, a sink they can get dirty, a closet to house their flammables and more.
“We call ourselves a world-class art city, and we’ve just left this one kind of hole,” Vernon says.
In fall 2018, The Cedars Union welcomed its first cohort of studio artists. The juried 18-month program provides subsidized space in the studio hall, designed by Matthew Bowdon to house the artist cohorts and encourage collaboration.
The program offers studios, shared tools, business training and community. The first cohort included Dallas standouts Jeremy Biggers, Hatziel Flores and Desireé Vaniecia.
“The space that was just incomparable,” says Vaniecia, who also teaches high school art.
Vernon describes cohort artists as “emerging,” but at a career inflection point. Alumni include Dora Reynosa, JD Moore, Tina Medina and Alec DeJesus, a contributing artist for The Loop Dallas.
“When we say emerging artists, though, we’re really talking about artists who are rising stars who are ready to take the next step in their career,” she says.
First in Class
This year, the fifth and largest cohort was selected from nearly 90 applicants. The 18 artists include environmental art activist Eliana Miranda, self-taught Nicaraguan photographer Alvaro Arroliga and graffiti artist and co-founder of graffiti jam Trigger Fingers Ray Albarez.
“Before I applied, I wondered if they are receptive to that, and if they’re willing to basically have a full-time graffiti artist on as part of the cohort,” Albarez says.
A decades-long figure in unsanctioned street art, Albarez is now confronting the divide between his public identity and personal artistry.
“That’s kind of my journey right now at Cedars, finding out what that [the future] is going to look like,” he says. “Am I just going to keep being two different people, or am I just going to be just myself?”
This cohort also includes the incubator’s first two writers: poet Harrison Blake and Nigerian essayist and literary artist Chukwudi Ukonne.
“This is an area where we are learning,” Vernon says. “Learning how we can support writers and a broader set of different types of artists and mediums, it’s really important to us.”
The studio hall is designed as a portal into the artistic process. Visitors can witness artists in practice from conceptualization to finished works.
“Art has started really, to become so separated from the artist,” Vernon says. “There are lots of people who don’t understand the difference between buying something from an artist and going and buying something from HomeGoods. We really want to make sure that the value of art being made here in Dallas is apparent to the public and to our community and showing them the work that goes into it is part of that.”
Outside of the cohort, The Cedars Union offers $80-a-month community artist memberships and open-to-the-public programming. The community artists’ membership includes access to shared workspaces and tools. Still, the nonprofit fields daily requests for studio space.
“Dallas has to choose to make an investment in our individual artists,” Vernon says. “We, at The Cedars Union, have developed a really effective bundle of resources to do that, and in order to continue doing that, we need their [Dallas’] support at all levels.”
Room to Grow
The upcoming Boedeker renovation will rely heavily on grants, gifts and donations. It will add an estimated 80 studios, plus a ceramics shop, metal shop, larger computer lab and nonprofit gallery.
“That right there is going to just be life changing for some of these kids because they already want to start businesses when they get done with school and have these resources that they learned, and to be able to have access to that at a cost that is not expensive, is going to be life changing for them,” Vaniecia says.
Her students, the next generation of artists, have big creative dreams. Many want to be ceramicists or carpenters. The Cedars Union’s future will allow those dreams, and many others, to become reality.
“Everybody says that Dallas can be a thriving art community, we’re starting to get to that point where it can be actualized,” Vaniecia says.
