Your guide to the art along the Green Line
Use this guide to plan your tour of Deep Ellum Station.
Deep Ellum Station - Linking the Past and the Future
Station artist Julie Cohn strikes a thematic balance between Deep Ellum's legendary past and its hopes for the future. The artwork on the windscreens is a kind of palimpsest - an ancient manuscript that has been written on, scraped off, and used again, creating a layered effect.
"Deep Ellum has had so many iterations," she says. "I really wanted to capture that." The windscreens feature old and new imagery from the neighborhood that shifts depending on the viewing perspective.
Windscreens at Deep Ellum Station
The Traveling Man
For decades, motorists entering the Deep Ellum neighborhood from downtown Dallas on Good-Latimer would drive through a long railroad underpass with concrete walls that became a canvas for local muralists. When it was decided that this iconic "gateway to Deep Ellum" would have to be removed to make way for the new Deep Ellum Station, DART set out to provide the area with a new public art hallmark.
In what has been dubbed "The Deep Ellum Gateway Project," DART hosted a design competition for an imaginative and highly visible public art project to welcome all visitors who enter Deep Ellum. Brandon Oldenburg of Deep Ellum's own Reel FX Creative Studios and Brad Oldham of Dallas-based Brad Oldham Inc. won the commission in 2007. The result - a three-part stainless steel sculpture series called The Traveling Man - delivers spectacularly.
The superstructure of Traveling Man is shown prior to the installation of stainless-steel skin.
The Traveling Man - Walking Tall
Good-Latimer & Swiss Avenue
Traveling Man stands 38-feet tall, creating a stunning welcome to neighborhood visitors and residents. With a jovial step from the southeast side of the lot, he links the neighborhood with the rail station.
The sculpture is brushed stainless steel connected with hundreds of visible stainless steel monobolt rivets. The stainless steel birds on the ground serve as functional seating as well as part of the sculpture. The birds are polished to a mirror finish and made of the same material as the famous Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago's Millennium Park.
The Traveling Man - Waiting on a Train
Good-Latimer & Gaston Avenue
A nine-foot Traveling Man leans against a concrete portion of the original Deep Ellum Tunnel and strums his guitar while waiting for the next train. The circular shape of the guitar body resembles the core of his own body, reminding viewers his music comes from his heart.
The Traveling Man - Awakening
Good-Latimer & Elm Street
The Traveling Man's eight-foot-wide head rises from the ground as if he is emerging from the earth below Deep Ellum. As people meet, talk, sing, wait, and spend time in Deep Ellum, they can lounge on his approachable head. Here again, sculptural birds offer their bodies to guests for generous seating.