In 1986, Cora Cardona Hurst staged José Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio at the Bath House Cultural Center. Next to the play she set up an altar so audiences could see the arts and crafts made in Mexico for Día de Muertos. Some scenes in the play have characters dining at tombstones. Cardona Hurst said that's one reason so many Mexican-Americans embraced the play, because it looked a lot like the tradition of dining and celebrating at cemeteries for the holiday. The altar was supposed to go with one production. People responded so well that the Bath House's director at the time invited her back.
That altar is now a 40-year-old exhibition. This year it opens on Saturday, Oct. 10, the same day the 33rd annual White Rock Artists Studio Tour opens its doors around the lake. On the calendar they look like two events. In practice they share a building and at least one artist. On Sunday, the reception starts at the exact hour the studios close.
Forty years and 28 curations
Enrique Fernández Cervantes came to the Bath House from Mexico City in 1999. By then the exhibition was already a tradition. "I thought, 'Oh, that's a festivity that I grew up with, and maybe I can do something to continue that tradition,'" he told the Lakewood Advocate. He has now curated the show 28 times.
The 2026 theme is "They're Having a Party!" Artists were asked to imagine the spirits of loved ones coming back to celebrate, with marigolds, candles, music, food and family stories. Cervantes expected about 350 to 400 submissions and planned to pick roughly 45 to 60 of them for the Bath House's three galleries. At most, that's about one entry in six. He reviews photographs of the work without knowing who made each piece.
"The main thing I look for is whether or not the artists actually read the description of the theme." — Enrique Fernández Cervantes, curator and visual arts coordinator, Bath House Cultural Center
For the last 10 or 12 years, each edition has taken one part of the holiday that people may not know much about and explored it. Calaveras are one example. These short rhyming poems can be affectionate, satirical or aimed at public figures. Some works are larger than a frame. The call for entries asked artists to propose altar installations and planned to select five to seven of them. Maggie Wolters, a Mexican artist who leads cartonería, or papier-mâché, work in Dallas, is on the 2026 roster. She's known for large papier-mâché sculptures and Día de los Muertos altars.
The same building is a studio tour stop
The White Rock Artists Studio Tour lists three art centers alongside its home studios. They are the Bath House Cultural Center at 521 E. Lawther Dr., Creative Arts Center of Dallas at 2360 Laughlin Dr., and Iron Frog Press at 8131 Barbaree Blvd. The tour's 2026 announcement counts 33 studios plus those three centers.
The overlap goes past the building. Jim Hastings is in the Día de Muertos show, and he's also in the studio tour directory at 1239 N. Selva. That means you could see his work in a gallery on the lake and then visit the place where he makes it, all in one weekend. Friends of the Bath House Cultural Center is also on the tour's sponsor list, along with Creative Arts Center of Dallas.
Neither event has to go looking for an audience. The tour describes the neighborhoods around White Rock Lake as a haven for visual artists. The Bath House has been bringing artists to that same shoreline every fall since the 1980s. Together they make up a fall art calendar that has been building for decades.
Sunday at 5 o'clock
The studio tour runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both Saturday, Oct. 10, and Sunday, Oct. 11. It's free and self-paced. The exhibition's artist reception is Sunday, Oct. 11, from 5 to 7 p.m., with music by Sones de México. A September listing says the exhibition and the reception are both free and open to the public.
So the last studio visit of the weekend and the start of the reception fall on the same minute. If you end your Sunday route close to East Lawther Drive, you can go straight from a studio to a gallery full of altars while the band plays. Cardona Hurst described the holiday this way: "It belongs to all of us, whoever wants to embrace it and pay tribute to our departed loved ones."
A route that ends at the lake
The tour's map page links to a downloadable 2026 flyer and map and an interactive tour map that works with GPS. Printed maps will be handed out later in the fall. Each studio sets its own visitor policies, and some may require masks. With all that in mind, here's one way to plan the two days.
- Saturday morning, Barbaree Boulevard. This one street has the tour's tightest cluster. Iron Frog Press is at 8131 Barbaree. Marty & Richard Ray are at 8166, Rebecca & Ken Boatman at 8207, Larry Paul Jones at 8244, Glo Coalson at 8247 and Chris Lyons at 8255. Woody Glenn is close by at 8325 Forest Hills Blvd. The Rays also appear on the tour's sponsor list.
- Saturday afternoon, the Laughlin and Selva stops. Creative Arts Center of Dallas is at 2360 Laughlin Dr. On North Selva, stop at Jim Hastings' studio at 1239 N. Selva. Treehouse Studio at 1247 N. Selva is marked closed for this year's tour on the interactive map, so plan around it.
- Sunday, the studios farther out. The directory includes Grace P. Glover's Chez Henry Studio at 6003 Belmont, Amy Werntz at 6441 Trammel and Jochum Family Pottery at 558 N. Buckner. Lynn Eskridge's listing is also marked closed this year. Check the interactive map before you head to any address.
- Sunday, 5 p.m., the Bath House. Park once at 521 E. Lawther Dr. and stay for the reception until 7.
You can also start the weekend early. The Dallas Arboretum's Pumpkins and Pints runs Friday, Oct. 9, from 6 to 9 p.m., with food, drinks and themed programming.
The exhibition stays up after the weekend
The reception lasts two hours, but the show runs through Nov. 7. Entry is free, and regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Some performances at the Bath House may charge admission. A weekday visit gives you the altars without the opening-weekend crowd. October also has several other reasons to make the trip:
- Lakefront Live, Tuesday, Oct. 13: a concert by MurieL.
- Futurism Lab, Saturday, Oct. 17: a teen art workshop with Erica Con.
- Lakefront Live, Tuesday, Oct. 27: Brandi Waller-Pace in concert.
- The Taming of the Shrew, Oct. 29–Nov. 14: a run that overlaps the exhibition's final week and a half.
The Pumpkins and Pints evenings continue at the Arboretum on Oct. 16, 23 and 30. You could pair one of those Fridays with a Saturday afternoon in the galleries for a second October weekend by the lake, after the studios have closed for the year.
The tour's local sponsors include Goody Goody Liquors, Paper Arts, Blue Goat Studio and the Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate. Their support pays for the flyers, website and publicity that make a free tour possible.
Stefany loves an East Dallas weekend like this one, when the art and the neighborhood show up on the same streets. If you've been thinking about a home closer to the lake, a quick conversation with Stefany Nau is a good place to start. Your Next Move Starts Nau.
