Photo by Breonny Lee

BY Taylor Adams Cogan

Many people in Deep Ellum know Cathryn Colcer: Her warm nature is welcoming, she’s an integral part of the art scene, and her passion for history helps her keep this important neighborhood’s stories alive.

And, of course, she’s part of those stories herself. While several people’s first encounters with the neighborhood involve partying on Elm Street, hers go back to her grade-school years.

“I actually did my first album cover for a local band in Deep Ellum when I was a preteen,” she says, nodding to how improbable that sounds. “My mom had this boyfriend who played music down there. I drew something for a T-shirt, and they used it. That was my experience with anything Deep Ellum.”

Cathryn grew up in Mesquite, but her interest in Deep Ellum started early. Her mom was dating a musician, and she would help out the band when they performed.

“She helped sell merch for his band when they played at TG’s — that was what everyone called the Theater Gallery — and sometimes at 500 Café,” Cathryn says.

Once she had a car, she made regular trips into Deep Ellum and Lower Greenville.

“It was close, fun, safe, and there were plenty of things for people to do besides drink. We’d go to record stores and coffee shops that were open late. You could wander in and out of shops during the day. You might end up in a head shop here and there, which maybe your parents wouldn’t love, but everything was pretty tame,” she says.

She eventually lived and worked in Lower Greenville — shifts at Granada Theater, Café Brazil, and a little antique shop near the Arcadia Theatre. “That antique shop was two doors down from a Jay Lee’s Legacy.”

Behind the Granada was a little shop where she met Ruth. Her brother ran a shop on Greenville, and she ran a little place on Elm Street facing a parking lot behind a silver streamliner. The Sunshine Store was behind Kettle Art when it was on Elm, which some might remember in the 1990s as Wild at Heart.

“Ruth taught me how to do hair wraps. She also taught me that ‘anyone could string a bead’. She still makes beautiful jewelry with metals and stones. That was early ‘90s Deep Ellum — artists and weirdos and kids trying to figure it out,” Cathryn says.

For those who know her, it’s no surprise that Cathryn has always been drawn to art.

“I used to get in trouble for drawing in class. Artists are just drawn to where the art is happening, and Deep Ellum is that. It is where you can just be yourself.”

She studied architecture and historic preservation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then moved back to Dallas in 2008 with her husband, Dan Colcer (a phenomenal muralist, if you didn’t already know). She says times were getting tight in Chicago, and she wanted to be near her grandparents. So, they came back.

She remembers walking Dan through Deep Ellum, which in 2008 was full of “for lease” signs, trying to show him what made it magical.

“There’d be a guy on his knees doing outer space scenes with circle templates and spray paint, Ruth would be on the sidewalk here selling her jewelry, the Deep Ellum poet would be wandering around offering poems for a dollar — it was a different world,” she says. “And I wanted him to see it.”

They made that their world. At first, as volunteers, trying their best not to let the neighborhood die. “Everything was still there, but it felt empty. We wanted to be part of whatever was going to bring it back,” she says.

Their first paid job in the neighborhood came through Deep Ellum Foundation, through coordinator Lee Ann Stone, who put out a call to paint slabs under I-345. They selected Dan’s submitted design and paid him $150, which felt big to them then. From there, the momentum built – art shows, markets, and eventually, their first booth sale.

“We sold a piece to David Kaspar, who was on the DECA board. His sister in Austin loved Dan’s work and bought Vortex one night at the Kettle Art Gallery. That was a big sale – not one we expected,” she says.

They attended D.E.E.P. (Deep Ellum Enrichment Project) and DECA meetings, where they learned about their favorite businesses and made friends along the way.

“We usually met at Pete’s [Dancing Marlin]. That’s how we got to know Pete Zotos. Everyone was so involved, it felt like you were part of something,” she says.

They also started to sell at the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market, started by Brandon Castillo, getting work to people when some thought there was only one gallery and artist in the neighborhood – thankfully, the truth is that’s never been the reality.

Cathryn’s relationship with Deep Ellum goes well beyond art. These days, she’s building something even more lasting: a historical archive for the Deep Ellum Foundation.

“There are so many new people now, and I don’t always know everything that’s going on,” she says. “But I know how important it is to get things documented.”

She’s working with others in the neighborhood to catalog old flyers, posters, and records – including a three-drawer vertical file cabinet of live shows saved by Sons of Hermann Hall’s Ranger Randall Fields.

“Jeff Liles had a binder with many of the bands he promoted. I took it to the library to document it, and while we want to catalog each piece individually, there is also a value in the way someone assembled it – the whole story,” she says.

Her goal is preservation and accuracy.

“In the future, there are going to be young people writing papers, and new generations making documentaries. If we don’t document it, it becomes hearsay. Or worse, it gets swept under the rug,” she says.

In her time as the Archive Coordinator at DEF, she has met Alan Governor and Jay Brakefield, the historians responsible for bringing the history of Deep Ellum back from being all but forgotten. She has presented for the Lead Belly Documentary showing at the Dallas Museum of Art, introducing Lead Belly’s nephew, Alvin Singh. She has, in passing, within the Community Center, met Cadino Newman, son of Fat Head Newman, and had a chance to meet the granddaughter of Frank Buckley Walker – a talent scout for Columbia Records who worked in Deep Ellum, discovering artists like Bessie Smith and Blind Willie Johnson.

Her background at the Chicago History Museum taught her the stakes, and Dallas is lucky to have her.

“I’m a little bit of a nerd,” she says. “I just want people who feel like I do to come help and contribute to the history so we can get all the pieces together and documented.”