Photography by Yuvie Styles
Don “Tortellini” Thomas II was working as an environmental health and safety specialist when he was furloughed during the pandemic.
He decided to pick up photography, and turned to YouTube to learn everything he knows.
“I had a moment where I wanted to try to change the trajectory of my life,” Tortellini says. “I went through a few creative mediums, but landed on photography. I knew as soon as I picked up a camera that I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing. I wanted to tell stories in my community.”
He started shooting food distribution events at For Oak Cliff, a nonprofit fighting against systemic racism and oppression in Dallas.
This first project snowballed into professional gigs for the dedication of Botham Jean Boulevard in Dallas, as well as commissions for NorthPark Center, Fiend BMX and NFL players. Soon, Tortellini started developing his own projects.
Tortellini made it his mission to shine the spotlight on Oak Cliff with the creation of “Village Oak Cliff.” He travels across our neighborhood connecting with people and sharing their intimate stories.
“Oak Cliff is a place that, unfortunately, has been misconceived as a place of violence, and an unfortunate set of circumstances that makes it not anybody’s real destination,” Tortellini says. “There’s a lot of value here, rich tradition and history and culture that people haven’t tapped into because there’s nowhere for them to learn it. So what I try to do is I try to tell those stories and bridge that gap, to fill that need, to fight that misconception that’s been created through the media.”
The idea of The Village is to have tangible photography all around the city.
“One of the main photographs lives at Redbird Mall, and I would love for the photography to be acquired by different buildings and different entities to show storytelling in the form of photography,” Tortellini says.
Another one of Tortellini’s projects, titled KLAWZ, is an exhibition that shows
off nail art in Dallas. The body of work was acquired by the University of North Texas, making Tortellini the first and only student to have work acquired and added to the special collections library.
The Village Oak Cliff, which includes cinematography, is also part of the partnership with UNT.
“[UNT] gave me access to the NBC 5 archive they acquired, and I was the first ever student to make a film out of that archive,” Tortellini says. “I’m able to expand The Village by adding another layer of education, presenting archive news footage to educate people about things that happened in Oak Cliff.”
The goal of The Village is to preserve the culture of Oak Cliff through photography and short films to honor the people and pillars of the neighborhood.
He has produced several films that pay homage to the rich culture and history of Oak Cliff. This includes Dear Oscar, which gave a voice to Laura Sanchez, whose son Oscar was murdered in Duncanville.
“We premiered it at Texas Theater, and 500 people were there,” Tortellini says. “It was insane. It’s definitely something that I’ll never forget. I felt like filmmaking was something that Oak Cliff needed.”
All of this was pre-film school for Tortellini, who later attended Florida State University. He left after he said he did not have the best experience.
Despite this, Tortellini is going on four years strong making a living off of his photography and filmmaking.
“I’m so grateful,” Tortellini says. “I haven’t clocked into a job for four years, going on five years, which is insane.”
Tortellini has plenty of projects in the works, including a part two for KLAWZ, and of course continuing to expand The Village.
“I want to inspire, and I want people to know the work that I’ve done,” Tortellini says. “Hopefully it lives forever.”
