10 minute read
The Lakewood
PAINTING THE TOWN
Meet one of the city’s most prolific muralists
Story by JEHADU ABSHIRO Photography by YUVIE STYLES
THE LAKEWOOD MURAL AT GASTON AND ABRAMS. PSYCHEDELIC STAIRS AT MOCKINGBIRD STATION. A CITYSCAPE AT SHOPS AT PARK LANE. DEEP ELLUM’S FIRE STATION NO. 3.
There’s a good chance you’ve seen one of 33-year-old Mariel Pohlman’s murals.
Bright doodles, detailed sunsets, colorful Southwestern pastoral, funky pets — there’s a certain joy to her work. She’s become one of the most prolific muralists in the city, painting everything from private homes to corporate offices to crosswalks.
“I’ve lived in Dallas for a while now. I’ve gotten to know all these different neighborhoods and then to be able to kind of put my mark on these public places and have so many people just be able to stumble upon it,” she says. “That’s been really cool.”
She spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Portales, a small town on the edge of eastern New Mexico. Her mother’s family had lived there for several generations. Pohlman’s father, an accountant by trade, left Houston to help run her grandfather’s hardware store.
“That was really a great place to grow up and spend a lot of time out in nature,” she says.
Then Walmart moved into town, and the hardware store closed. Pohlman’s father went back to his career as an accountant, and the family moved to Dallas for a job when Pohlman was 11 years old.
She studied accounting in college. Her father had done it, and she had the mind for it.
“I was trying to pick a major in college that was practical and that I knew I’d be able to get a job. That’s really why I picked it,” she says.
She worked as an auditor and then technology consultant for three years. But people often told her she didn’t seem like an accountant.
“As I got into that career path, I just didn’t really see a future that I was very interested in,” she says.
So she quit.
“It was just a very personal decision. So I knew that I couldn’t really wait for someone to give me permission,” she says. “I just needed to do it for myself.”
With a one-way ticket to Hong Kong and no plan, Pohlman spent the next year abroad. There were four months in southeast Asia. Somewhere in Vietnam, she bought a sketchbook. She’d only ever taken one art class.
“That was really the turning point in me having a purpose for the traveling and way to process all of my experiences being solo,” she says.
By the time she worked her way to Amsterdam, she had a book full of sketches. The scans of her illustrations became the base of her new website. She was going to be an illustrator.
“I basically just made business cards and made a website and then came back. And I just started telling people that I was starting a business,” she says. “I really didn’t have much of a plan other than just having confidence in myself.”
She did a presentation about her artwork at Common Desk, where she had worked out of for the last bit of her 9-to-5 job. The coworking space asked her to paint a mural on the side of Ross Avenue’s Fiction Coffee, owned by Common Desk.
She finished the Christmas mural with “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” in 2017. People started flocking to the coffee shop for photos. The Dallas Morning News wrote about her art. She’s repainted the side of Fiction Coffee several times since then.
“It was a little bit challenging because every project, I was figuring things out for the first time, and I would get an opportunity and say yes, and then, you know, have to come up with a plan,” she says.
There was a lot of worrying the first year or two while she transitioned into art as a career. Was she going to be able to support herself? Would the projects dry up?
“When the pandemic started, I think that was one of the scariest times because I just thought everything was going to come to a stop, and I had lots of projects get canceled,” she says.
Her client list has since grown to include Lyft, Heineken, Walmart and Frost Bank. She’s completed about 50 murals in the last four years, painting six hours a day.
The challenge has changed from managing finances to being able to manage her time and health. She’s connected with other local artists for collabration and support. And she’s carved out time to travel.
“It was about three and a half years that I was just working so hard that I was almost scared to step away,” she says.
She spent this past January in Argentina, working on her Spanish. And there’s a trip planned for Colombia in the summer.
“It’s been great to get back into traveling,” she says. “It’s really one of my main sources of inspiration.”
We know the neighborhood.
9247 Hobart • $849,000
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ART,WORK
An East Dallas resident co-founded a business that could change the game for female artists
Story by CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB | Photography by JOHNATHAN JOHNSON
ON A SUNLIT AFTERNOON IN
MAY, Tyler Station’s shop doors are open, allowing passersby a glimpse at proprietors peddling books, vintage threads, organic dog food and other wares or services.
Among them, Corrie Pocta, co-founder of the all-women artist cooperative Trade Oak Cliff, is preparing for maternity leave. Working on the store’s studio side, she shifts gears (artist to salesperson) when shoppers arrive. Business hours are fluid. The store is open Thursdays through Sundays — and whenever else an artist is in — but that could change when the baby comes.Pocta sells her own creations — ceramic mugs and vases and leather works — and those made by her co-tenants, including business partner contemporary artist Brooke Chaney, a Lake Highlands High School graduate whose brand name is Made By Mom.
Pocta and Chaney are both former Dallas school teachers aiming to strike the right balance of artist and entrepreneur. They clicked a few years back at an education workshop upon discovering they both had meticulous minds and lofty ambitions, Pocta says.
“Though we’re artists, we were both nerdy, with achiever brains,” she says. “The way that both of our minds work is that we create a lot while also being analytical and pragmatic.”
Chaney says this led to a “mutual respect” and friendship. When Pocta quit teaching in 2020, she inspired Chaney to do the same.
In order to make art a full-time pursuit, they rented space inside the converted factory adjacent to Tyler Vernon Rail Station — now home to several small retailers, brewers, bakers and hairdressers — and launched Trade.
The founders say it took patience and discernment to find others operating at a similar level, but now Trade has a steady team in place — it includes artists Molly Sydnor, Niki Dionne, Charli Miranda and Cat Rigdon.
Co-artists pay a share of the rent and work shifts in the shop in return for personal work and exhibition space. They keep 100% of their sales.
“We have a crew that’s planning to stay for a while, people that are looking to expand their product,” Pocta says. “The opportunity to showcase means an opportunity to grow.”
Trade Oak Cliff at Tyler Station is part studio, part store and part pottery or painting classroom. Chaney and Pocta say teaching is still an important component of their mission.
Back row, from left to right: Molly Sydnor, Cat Rigdon, Corri Pocta and Niki Dionne. Front row: Charli Miranda and Brooke Chaney.
“Giving people an opportunity to be creative and engage with things and understand the process hopefully gives them an appreciation for more sustainable items,” Pocta says. “Maybe they are going to buy a special piece of art because they now have an appreciation. Maybe they want to buy less, buy local, want things in their life to be a little bit more meaningful.”
The chance for artists to sell directly to consumers also is a driving force behind Trade, the women say.
That not only keeps prices down but also allows creators to connect with the shoppers purchasing their products. Trade takes this artist-consumer pipeline concept beyond its membership with local markets, where other merchants who do not have storefronts also can sell directly.
“For us, it takes six people sharing rent for our space,” Pocta says. “A lot of people don’t have that physical brick and mortar spot, so the markets are a part of making that happen for more people.”
Chaney — whose vibrant geometric paintings, handmade apparel and person-sized fabric flowers (commissioned for immersive art shows like Sweet Tooth Hotel) lend blasts of color to the little shop — says she loves the sense of community that results from the way Trade operates.
“A big part of it for me is creating genuine and authentic friendships, not just customers, and the cross pollination that we get at markets or just by hanging out here at the space,” Chaney says. “We have so many people that will just drop by, just saying ‘hi.’”
She says visitors don’t need to purchase something or take classes. Sometimes Trade is just a spot for like-minded folks to share ideas or meet their neighbors.
“I will talk you under the table,” Chaney quips.
Trade’s business model is unique. As the women break new ground they hope to share what they’ve learned with others.
There’s a need in the art world, Pocta says. She wants more artists to use the co-op structure.
“We are paving a way and would love to spread knowledge,” she says. It is something they plan to do more formally in the future, but for now they invite anyone to drop by and talk shop.
That goes for all local business owners, Chaney adds. She has done office design work for women launching companies and thinks sharing what they’ve learned about paperwork, permits and taxes, for example, can help first-time business owners overcome that fear of the unknown.
“It’s just been exciting to see how many women are actually out there, starting their own businesses, running their own businesses,” Chaney says. “Just having that community and camaraderie between us is empowering, and I am just excited to see how many of us are out there.”
OF COMPASS REAL ESTATE
BECKY FREY REAL ESTATE GROUP
Becky Frey says the beauty of her team is that they understand full-time working moms who juggle family and jobs — her team does the same thing, too. “This team represents unique market resources, different age and networking groups,” she says. The Becky Frey Real Estate Group annually tops $200 million in sales, with most properties recently selling quickly offmarket. “It’s a domino effect: people don’t want to sell without a place to go. We put the pieces tougher,” Frey says. In addition to her first-love — real estate — SMU alumna Frey is an avid runner, enjoys fly fishing in Argentina and spends time in Crested Butte, Colorado.
