Art That Travels Well

When Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) asked Debora Hunter five years ago to design the public art component – columns, paving patterns, and windscreens – for its new commuter rail station at LBJ Freeway and Skillman Road, she was at a momentary loss for ideas. But Hunter, a photographer and artist who grew up in Chicago, is at once comfortable and familiar with an urban landscape, as well as public transportation via the Windy City's elevated train.

Drawing upon what she calls a "well-developed narrative capacity" as a photographer, as well as her background in literature that she obtained as an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Hunter envisioned a station platform that blends a literal interpretation of the transportation industry with presidential history. Hunter, associate professor of photography in Meadows School of the Arts, found inspiration in ordinary objects such as highway signage materials, tire treads, and roadway "buttons," incorporating them into the design of the station.

A design created by SMU photography professor Debora Hunter has transformed a barren patch of land surrounded by warehouses and eight lanes of freeway into a pleasant oasis for harried urban commuters.

The presidential history aspect was a given because of the freeway's LBJ namesake – she merely drew from materials about the 36th president of the United States Lyndon Baines Johnson and the first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, both Texas natives. Speeches and writings by both adorn some of the windscreens made of reflective highway materials. The result – witty and educational – has transformed a barren patch of land surrounded by warehouses and eight lanes of freeway into a pleasant oasis for harried urban commuters.

The experience also was educational for Hunter: She not only learned how to work with new materials that would remain durable outdoors, but also how to manage an art project that was restricted by public funding and construction deadlines. She accepted the challenge, she says, because "I wanted my children to see work I had done as an example of participation in our civic life outside the traditional venues of museums or art galleries."

Since the completion of the rail station, Hunter has returned to a personal project that has occupied her attention for 11 years, calling it "the most complicated work I've done." During family road trips, Hunter photographs her husband and children in the car and the passing landscape outside. She pairs the two photos together to serve as a commentary on the American landscape and the family.

Hunter's photography has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions and has been acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, and the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., among others.

Hunter joined SMU in 1976, just after earning an M.F.A. degree in photography from Rhode Island School of Design.

For more information: Debora Hunter
dhunter@mail.smu.edu
http://meadows.smu.edu/default.asp?page=Art-DHunter