Client: MCAD, City of El Paso

Overview

The large mural is over 7,500 square feet and stretches approximately 1,200 feet long. The retaining wall is located on Geronimo Dr., in El Paso, TX, a busy thoroughfare that connects to Interstate 10. The flat graphic patterns used throughout the mural are based on both traditional Mexican embroidery and Native American markings found in Apache clothing and basketry. The tribe markings align with the mural’s street name, Geronimo Drive, which was named after the historic Apache figure. In two significant areas there is embedded material that reads “Juntos, Together” which was inspired by conversations with the many people of the neighborhood and visitors who described what made the City of El Paso special to them. Additionally, there is a poem crafted by late El Paso poet, Bobby Bird. Bird was inspired by the project’s Native American theme to share the emotions and blessings found in Apache prayers while travelers passing through the beautiful neighborhood. The regional palmists and animals featured in the mural are prickly pear cactus, Mexican Gold Poppies, a Burrowing Owl, Mexican Gray Wolf, Black-tail Jackrabbit, the Greater Roadrunner, and Snow Egret.

Goals

The artist designed the mural's imagery and composition for the different types of experiences happening along Geronimo Drive. Iconographic shapes and large spaces of color are used to brighten the ambient and peripheral drivers' perspective along the road. Strategically intermixed are rendered imagery of regional plants and animals, as well as embedded metal writing, to be enjoyed and safely seen by drivers, passengers and pedestrians who travel up an down the street. The main idea behind the mural elements placement is to create areas throughout the composition that are painted with texture, depth, lights and shadows for people that can view the details of the work more thoroughly.