Major Projects: DART Baylor Station

Artistic Value Statement

The two passionate and creative neighborhoods of Baylor and Deep Ellum come together at the Baylor DART station.

Baylor Hospital, founded as a Christian ministry of healing, has repeatedly been recognized by US News as one of the country's best hospitals. Say Baylor and one thinks of world class doctors, researchers, sports physicians, surgeons, theologians, and schools. The Baylor mission is "to serve all people through exemplary health care, education, research and community service."

Deep Ellum, on the other hand, conjures up images of legendary Texas musicians, cutting edge artists, clubs, nightlife, tattoo parlors, restaurants, small business, and urban living. Deep Ellum began as an African American neighborhood, and was the home of black vaudeville, black owned clubs, and renowned blues musicians such as Blind Lemon Jefferson.

The two neighborhoods have a shared history and have co-existed since their inception. Each neighborhood has stayed close to it's original mission. Baylor was and is a center of health and healing. Deep Ellum remains an urban draw where people come for entertainment and cultural enrichment.

That being said, how do we champion the differences yet celebrate the common ground between the creative people who will walk in every direction to and from the Baylor DART station?

Inside the walls of Baylor are doctors, pastors, surgeons and researchers who are literally on the pulse of life and death issues.

"On the pulse" takes on somewhat different meaning in Deep Ellum. The vitality of the artists, musicians, chefs, and club owners gives us opportunity to experience the direct connection between life experience and life expression.

Baylor and Deep Ellum are simultaneously on the pulse and at the cutting edge. How does the DART station and plaza express this? Simply put, it's a map of the creative process. The giant fingerprint (imprint) is the connection to the pulse, to the creative core, the heartbeat of vitality. It is engagement with life.

There are five paths leading into and away from the "core", or the "pulse". The five paths signify the five senses—the means through which we create, express, transform, learn, and teach. The sensory signals in the art in the sidewalks cue visitors to each of the senses.

The streeet grids of the Baylor and Deep Ellum neighborhood converge at the plaza and are continued into the garden areas. From above, the grids look like a quilt. The grids could also be interpreted as the orderly structures introduced to the organic creative process. The tension of the opposing grids is accepted. The garden and plaza become at various times (and for different people) a transformative walk, a play area and retreat for friends and relatives of patients at Baylor Hospital, shelter for those waiting for a DART train, a place for restoration and meditation, and an attunement to senses, nature, and spirit.

At the station platform, the columns that support the canopies are a three dimensional collage of elements from Baylor and Deep Ellum. In the basic fluted column shape, we find reference to the original Baylor Hospital columns. The surface of the column erodes to reveal brick material that refers to Deep Ellum . The sculpture of the hands releasing the heart is taken from one of the reliefs by Pierre Van Parys Bourdelle and Jose Martin that was installed at the A. Webbs Robert Center. This depicts the moment at the final stage of the creative process — when the creative heart is set free and released to the world.

The 14 windscreens honor people "on the pulse" who've made a unique contribution to the history of the Baylor and Deep Ellum neighborhoods. Each piece of art will be a collage of portrait, informative text, historic photographs, and quotes from the subject.

The diverse disciplines of medicine, theology, music, art, and business stewardship begin at the same place - the pulse, the heartbeat, the engagement with life. At the Baylor DART station, doctors, pastors, and researchers will cross paths with artists, musicians, and nightclub owners, and on every pass through, will be reminded of the life that they work to save, heal, express, relish, and celebrate.

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