Ash Fridays: Green Bandana's Party Manifesto

Photo by Bart Hamlin/Batty Photography

When Green Bandana Group throws a party we want to change your life.

We almost violently want to disprove every negative thing that people have to say about Dallas. We want to show you that the people are cool and interesting, the music is great, the artists are talented, the boys are handsome, and the girls are cute.

We want to make you regret that you went to Austin or New York or L.A. for the weekend.

We want you to feel inspired by the time your hangover wears off the next day.

When you think about your life in this city – we want to be responsible for providing some of your best memories.

We want to push you past where you normally go.

We want to be the reason you stayed out a little too late, you drunk a little too much, you had a little too much fun.

We want to prove to you that going that extra 10% is okay.

We want to let you know that we are your friends, and that you never have to be alone again.

We believe we can change Dallas.

We believe we can build community.

Because of this, Green Bandana is throwing a party every Friday until the end of the year, starting this Friday, December 7^th.

Each party will take place at Ash Studios, which is by far one of the coolest spaces we have ever found.

Each party will have some conceptual underpinning – throwing parties is how we process through life.

For example “POST PARIS” comes from a conversation with a friend about what do n*ggas do after “N*ggas In Paris”. How do you continually try to push? When you can have access to everything, what do you actually want? What do you do when you grow tired of wanderlust?

Or our two part party – End Of The World (Friday December 21^st) and Brave New World (Saturday December 22^nd); plays with the idea of uncertainty. We celebrate things at their ending and their beginning – yet in this case who is really sure what is going to happen. Will we be fearful on Friday, relieved on Saturday, or will none of it matter?

That being said – ultimately Ash Fridays is about having fun, spending time with those we care about, meeting new people, and being open to the possibility that yes, something as small as a party has the capacity to change your life.

I hope to see you this Friday.

Green Bandana's YOLO Summer

Timing can be everything.

When I started Green Bandana Group in 2009 the timing was mixed.

The art scene had not started to recover from being decimated by the Great Recession. Deep Ellum was at the very start of its recovery. The Arts District was eerily empty. Even the Design District was just starting to boom.

Dallas was a clean slate, and there wasn’t much momentum then – just a heartbreakingly urgent need for someone to do something to help the scene.

Three years later, there is momentum – a sense of purpose, dare I say even swagger when you look at the Dallas arts scene.

Deep Ellum recovered (although poor public policy decisions might soon ruin that), there are signs of life in the Arts District, and the Design District might be at the height of its bubble.

Galleries are popping up all over the place. People are trying to create new things. Everyone is tuned in.

This summer Green Bandana hopes to raise the level of arts, culture, and entertainment.

As always it starts with people. We have hired several development partners to help us out this summer. They are accomplished, passionate, and ready to make a difference. I look forward to introducing them shortly.

This Thursday, May 24^th, we have put together a panel discussion at UTD Centraltrak called 1.2 Million Stories: State of the Emerging Arts. The panel will consist of talented people who are making a huge difference in our arts scene such as Danielle Georgiou, Kevin Rubens Jacob, Jerod Alexander Davies, and Bryan Embry. Yours truly will be moderating this discussion and there will be a lengthy Q&A at the end. This is a great opportunity to contribute to the conversation about our arts community and learn about what is going on.

Over the next few weeks, in a series of essays, we will lay out our philosophy and opinions about the visual art commerce complex. I am confident many people will disagree and perhaps be upset by what we suggest. It is completely against the status quo.

Yet, we are not simply going to complain about how things are done in the arts world.

We are going to try to fix it.

June 1^st we have the Grand Opening of our newest space – theSpace @Florence St. It is our 6200 sq ft laboratory nestled between the Arts District and Deep Ellum. We will build community here, we will provide amazing experiences, and we will be innovative with creating value for ourselves and our partners.

In July we will launch #PopupDallas. We will have 10 pop-up events across the city, ranging from dinners, to galleries, to boutique stores, concerts, and fashion shows. They will be fun, whimsical, and well-executed. We believe that you cannot always wait for them to come to you. Sometimes you have to go to them.

We will also have a series of pool and penthouse parties tentatively called “Parties In The Sky”. Mainly because its summer and we can. We might even throw a party on a boat.

By the end of the summer we might launch Art Stats, our ambitious project to look at what is objective about visual art.

Lastly we will continue to work and support our existing clients and partners, such as Blaqout Dallas and reTREEt America.

It will certainly be a busy summer, and hopefully a very productive one.

I couldn’t be more excited about our team, our new hires, our partners, our clients, our projects, and our city.

In the words of Hillel the Elder, “If not now, then when?”

See you in the sky.