There was a major opening this past week that could give the Dallas arts community the extra boost it has long needed. No, I am not talking about the Winspear Opera House or the Wyly Theater in the new and improved Arts District. What has attracted my interest and hope is a 5,000 square foot dilapidated building off of Haskell that used to house a Vietnam Veteran’s biker gang. Patrick Short has launched an ambitious, non-profit alternative space called Guerilla Arts here, providing groundbreaking local artists a place to call their own and hopefully igniting a long awaited youth movement.

As I sit here in October enjoying the crisp fall weather it seems as if an eternity has passed since my first article posted in May on a fledgling Renegade Bus. I lamented our lack of viable alternative spaces in Dallas and its effect on our community. This has been further compounded by the continued deterioration of our commercial gallery scene. Gerald Peters, And/Or, Road Agent, and now Pan American have all shuttered their doors, while Marty Walker purged half her space. So as the remaining galleries scratch away a meager existence trying to weather the storm we are left to wonder who will be next and when we will bottom out.

Recently there have been additional discussions regarding the future of the arts in Dallas from Christina Rees, Charissa Terranova, and Renegade’s own Peter and Lucia Simek, to name a few. Most have ended in a positive/hopeful tone (spoiler alert, mine will too), extolling how we are on the cusp of big things and pleading with people to take action to help realize our community’s potential.

Our supposed savior for all of Dallas, the new AT&T Performing Arts Center, arrived with much fanfare this past week. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very excited about this and have been doing the typical Texas thing, which is brag to all of my out-of-state friends that ours is bigger than yours. The buildings are architectural marvels that continue to receive praise from around the country and have put Dallas on the cultural map. Time even listed the Arts District as one of its top places to see in its September 21st Fall Arts Preview Issue, “there hasn’t been a performing arts project this ambitious since New York City broke ground on the Lincoln Center half a century ago.” But besides these bragging rights and providing the elite with a new place to play, what is it going to do for our visual arts community?

With this in mind I recently discovered a t-shirt in a local store with the Dallas version of the Austin motto “Keep Austin Weird.” The t-shirt read “Keep Dallas Pretentious.” Perfect, right? Another example of Dallas’ high end focus is the inclusion of only 3 local galleries, yet again, in our upcoming Dallas Art Fair. I think we can all guess who these are without much difficulty. We will have to discuss this further in the future. But that leaves one to wonder, where is the support for the young artists? After all, we know that the future is our children… at least that is what people keep saying.

Patrick Short is answering this call to arms with his new endeavor, Guerilla Arts. It provides Dallas with something that it has been sorely lacking, a true non-profit alternative arts space. He is exhibiting the sort of work that one would normally only find in New York or Los Angeles.

Patrick’s ambitions are clearly stated on the Guerilla Arts website under “Plan of Attack”: “Vision: To make Texas the leader in the contemporary art world.”

“Mission: To nurture emerging contemporary artists in Texas by providing them with exhibition opportunities, work space and teaching experience through a paid residency.” Make sure and check out the full plan at www.guerillaarts.org.

One of his main aims is to at least slow the migration out of Dallas by our talented young artists and to prevent out-of-state artists from completely writing us off as a relocation option. With a space not only exhibiting challenging art but encouraging it and even providing the studios in which to make it, maybe young artists will finally have a reason to stay. It seems to be working. As I meet more people associated with Guerilla Arts I am surprised to meet ambitious artists who have returned or relocated from Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston. They have done so because Patrick is providing them with the same opportunity that they would discover in those cities: a supportive space to build and test new ideas free from concerns of selling.

If the jam packed grand opening last week was any indication, this is something that has been eagerly anticipated. People crowded into the space openly engaging with the art and launching into a critical dialogue free of the usual Dallas pretention. For a second I felt transported to Chelsea as it once was or to Brooklyn as it is now. If Patrick’s heroic effort will inspire not only our talented young artists but some other selfless individuals to take up the torch and start similar opportunities then maybe Patrick Short will be the savior of our arts community.