TEXAS ART AND MUSIC FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES MURAL ARTISTS
The second annual Texas Arts and Music Festival will be held in downtown historic Brenham, Tex. on October 20, 21 and 22. The free festival will feature live music on multiple stages, an art village, pop-up art galleries, live mural paintings and more.
The Texas Arts and Music Festival is a non-profit organization focused on supporting art education, and bringing visual and performing arts to Brenham for the community and surrounding areas to enjoy. The city of Brenham and Brenham Community Development Corporation accepted a master plan in 2011 that designated an area south of the main square as an Arts and Theater District. The festival aims to revitalize the area and create a space for public art on the walls of Brenham’s downtown buildings of more joyful and colorful images that make the area an attraction for visitors.
"Many larger cities have begun to recognize the positive effects mural art can bring to their residents and the city environments," said Doug Cason, from the festival’s board of directors and professor of visual arts at Blinn College, "The murals painted in 2016 have become a staple on social media, as our youth and photographers document these decorated walls and the fairytale reading they provide."
The festival is proud to announce famed artists, Jeff Soto, Daniel Anguilu and Michael C. Rodriguez will create carefully planned, large-scale murals during the festival. Each artist has been given information on the rich history of Brenham and the region, and will design artwork that will coexist with the surrounding areas on the approved buildings in the district.
Jeff Soto is an international, art celebrity in both the illustration and muralist world. A traveler can find the works of Soto as far away as New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Tokyo. Soto’s mural for the October festival will be his first in Texas. His 72,000 followers on Instagram have watched him create on walls and concert posters for the Black Keys, Pearl Jam, Heart and Metallica, along with projects with Converse, Volkswagon, and Disney. Soto has created the Texas Arts and Music Festival poster and beginning early Friday, October 20, will be painting the back, three stories of the Faske building. The artist’s distinct color palette, subject matter and technique resonate with a growing audience and bridge the gap between pop surrealism and street art. Inspired by youthful nostalgia, nature, and popular culture, his bold, representational work is simultaneously accessible and stimulating.
Daniel Anguilu and Michael C. Rodriguez are both Houston artists of critical acclaim. Anguilu has been invited to many cities in the US, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Italy to create murals for art exhibitions, including the Mexican Consulate. Anguilu’s work is a stained-glass fusion of pre-Columbian imagery derived from his family leaving Mexico when he was 14 and moved to the United States where he says, "I met kids that were painting and I started hanging out with them. We could communicate without really speaking."
Michael C. Rodriguez brings a whimsical mixture of clean-lined cartoon characters from old illustrations; women mixed with bears and wolves in suits and all with a bright and clean polish. Rodriguez spends a lot of time researching and doing preparatory sketches in order to achieve an image as polished as possible. He says of his process, "I’m very digital—I like clean lines, solid colors," he explains "I’ll take a long time on a mural because I want everything as clean as possible, like it was made on a computer, and really bright."
The Texas Arts and Music Festival will be bringing these three artists, along with vendors, artists and musical acts, at no cost to the public. These three artists will be painting during the length of the festival and will be an incredible spectacle for the whole family to enjoy. For more information about the schedule of events, to purchase a VIP ticket or participate in the festivities, visit http://www.texasartsandmusicfestival.com or follow Texas Arts and Music Festival on Facebook. Story courtesy of Texas Arts and Music Festival.
When I first saw the murals, I was not impressed, but they have grown on me. Sometimes we need to come a little bit more into the 21st century. It’s great to have murals and pictures of our heritage, but it is also great to have other forms of art work. Downtown has changed so much since I was a kid, do I like it-not always, but it is progress and we know we cannot stop progress. As long as the murals are not sexually explicit, degrading to anyone or vulgar, I do not see a problem with it.
I look forward to seeing what this year’s muralists do. Public art is one of the good things about big cities, imo.
I have to respectfully disagree with Sonny, though I sure know where he’s coming from.
After the Blue Bell “thing” a few years ago, an awful lot of tourism dried up and blew away. No more Blue Bell tours means far fewer buses full of tourists. It’s painfully true. Just in the last few months, a number of downtown businesses have dried up and blown away, There is at least one that is in the middle of a going out of business sale. It’s pretty tragic.
Now, the best way to keep our precious downtown preserved is to keep it alive. No one will spend a dime preserving a building they can’t lease to a tenant. Without traffic, it will die. Ask Crockett, Commanche, Paducah… all filled to the brim with historic buildings. All of them crumbling and vacant because the locals shop in the big stores outside of downtown. It is probably too late for these places, but it isn’t too late for Brenham. And there are many things going on these days to avoid such an ignominious doom. The museum will reopen soon, with an entirely renewed image and lease on life. The Simon is going to be put to good use by the city. Mainstreet and the city are still engaging in those Wine Swirl events and such. This is all going to work… but a large festival will really make a big difference.
There are plenty of ugly walls around town with bad or fading paint. And the festival intends to put the art of some internationally recognized artists on those walls. It’s not offensive. It’s attractive in it’s own right, frankly. The mural of Sam Houston is amazing! but that isn’t the point…
The point is, we sacrifice some blank walls on side streets to attract people who like that sort of thing. Let me be clear: there are MANY people who like this sort of thing. Add music, some beer, a few food trucks, and we’ve got ourselves a shindig that any town would give their right arm to have. We sacrifice some blank walls to save the architectural heritage of Brenham’s downtown. Seems like a good trade to me. Besides… murals don’t last hundreds of years. You can paint over that stuff. It isn’t like the festival is tearing anything down. The business owners downtown are onboard. The city is onboard. The chamber is onboard. The county is onboard. The Museum is definitely onboard. And we support it (we are actually part of it, and actively work to see it succeed) because we know it will lead to the ongoing preservation of the material cultural heritage of our community. To us, it’s clear.
A final point… the wall everyone is familiar with, the one with the jaguar with bejeweled eyes? It is on the backside of a parking lot. A parking lot that was once the location of the heart of the black commercial district from 1900-1960… many a storefront torn down without any consideration for the past. Two blocks away, they tore down the old jail. The old courthouse was razed. The old City Hall came down. The old Coca Cola plant. The St Anthony Hotel. So clearly, the old way wasn’t working. Art it up a little, get some young folks down here to marvel at buildings meant to last hundreds of years. Give it some new life. THAT will save it. That will save it all.
Very well said, Doug!
I think it is a wonderful idea. Any time art can be shared and enjoyed by many that may not be able to purchase it, I believe it to be a positive thing. It is the expression of the artist and not a contractor told what to paint and what colors to use. Art comes out the finger tips originating in the mind and spirit if the artist.It is almost always meant to be shared and felt by others. There are many blank canvases where other subjects may be painted. For a moment…forget about history as most know it…and enjoy art wherever it may be created.
I also take note that reference is made to what “larger cities” are doing. And, this is a concern.
Too much, locally, is made to slant toward Big City thinking.
If visitors WANTED Big City ways they would stay there or actually GO to a Big City that is not trying to pretend it is what it is not.
The true success of any endeavor is sticking with the natural assets and capitalizing on them instead of faking it.
Has it come to this that local history is not considered enough for visitors that the look of the community must be tattooed up to make some folk think THAT is what makes it better?
If you’re bound on making things gaudy with sanctioned graffiti, at least do scenes that actually reflect the heritage of the area.
I can think of some past leaders of the community who would be “rolling in their graves” about this.
There’s an old saying: Just because you CAN doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.
Great! So more famous historical Texans with bandit paint over their eyes?? The murals are horrible.
I agree. This is ghetto art. Not art for a small historical Texas town. They might do this up north somewhere on abandoned warehouses or factories. This shows how far our local government and planners have gone astray.
Pretty sure the paint represents the time he spent living with the Cherokee, possibly his meeting in Washington DC where he appeared dressed in traditional Cherokee clothing. History is an interesting thing when you pay attention.
The “bandit eyes” refers to Sam’s history living with the Cherokee. It made him who he was and helped prepare him to be a great leader.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-sam-houston
‘After running away from his family as a teenager, Houston lived for nearly three years with the Cherokee tribe in eastern Tennessee. Houston learned fluent Cherokee, embraced the tribe’s customs and was given the name “Black Raven.” After resigning in disgrace as Tennessee governor, the despondent Houston took refuge with the Cherokee in the Arkansas Territory. There, the tribe formally adopted him, and he married a Cherokee woman, Tiana Rogers, in a tribal ceremony. Houston served as the tribe’s spokesman and advocate with the federal government, and as a U.S. senator he pressed for Native American rights. He sometimes wore traditional Cherokee garb to government meetings in Washington, D.C. ‘