ARTS & CULTURE
New public art projects just completed, several in the works
There are a ton of art projects that are currently in the works or recently completed around town. This increase in beautification around San Marcos can be attributed to the San Marcos Arts Commission and the amazing artists that they select to enhance the city. Trey Hatt, San Marcos Arts Commission arts coordinator, said there is currently a mural that was just completed, a large-scale mural that is in the design phase and a public sculpture that is in the fabrication phase.
Ryan Runcie just completed a mural in the Dunbar Neighborhood on the wall of Sacred Craft Tattoos, located at 404 Centre Street. This is not Runcie’s first mural in town; he also did the Veterans mural located at 133 West San Antonio Street.
“He’s from Austin, so he’s an area muralist with ties to San Marcos,” Hatt said. “He’s really good at community engagement, getting feedback and input from the community and really getting a feel from them what they wanted to see [and] what the history of that neighborhood is. He talked with folks who live there, people who lived there for generations, and that really informed his design for the mural. It’s one of the reasons we selected him for that.”
After several community meetings at the Dunbar Recreation Center, Runcie said it was clear those in the Dunbar Neighborhood wanted the mural to pay tribute to a special person from the area.
“Miss Ollie Hamilton was a great inspiration to the community,” Runcie said. “She passed in ‘85, but a lot of the community members that knew her and would visit her store still live around here. So they wanted to make sure that this building functioned as a landmark on her behalf.”
This mural is more than a beautiful painting that features Hamilton’s face shaded with splashes of bold color along with typical items that could be found in her store; Runcie said the QR code at the bottom right of the wall will provide insight into who she was as a person and why she is so valuable to the people that live in the Dunbar neighborhood.
“With help of a few historians that went to Texas State, I recorded approximately two and a half hours of interviews of local community members,” Runcie said. “That's what that QR code is going to be for, so that you can access both the short form and long form of the interviews.”
Hatt said there is another mural that will be getting started sometime this summer, and it will be located on the back wall of the shopping center at 110 East MLK Drive (the building that houses Industry and the Texas Health & Racket Club). Hatt said due to the large size of the project, the Arts Commission put out a nationwide call for artists and received over 100 applications. He said the three finalists were invited to an open house where they could get community input, walk around San Marcos to get to know the town and view the location as it will be a rather challenging endeavor. Then each finalist submitted a design, and Andrey Kravstov, who works under the name Key Detail was chosen.
“He's out of New York, and he's got experience doing large scale murals that are all up the sides of entire skyscrapers and stuff,” Hatt said, adding that the design needs final approval from city leadership before moving forward.
Hatt said there is a public sculpture in the works that will be located at Ramon Lucio Park next to Cheatham Street. The artist will be Shane Allbritton who has done a large sculpture on the Texas State University campus. The new piece will be a 15 foot abstract structure inspired by the city’s most valuable resource.
“This is from her artist statement for the sculpture. It is inspired by the natural river systems that shape the culture and beauty of San Marcos and some of the form inspiration is the Morning Glory sculptures by Buck Winn that were at Aquarena Springs,” Hatt said. “Early fall is when the installation is supposed to go in. It's in the fabrication stage right now.”
Hatt said there were recently new sculptures installed at Art Park, which is formerly the Sculpture Garden and located in the field between the San Marcos Public Library and The San Marcos Activity Center. One of the sculptures is a tall limestone figure coined Primeval, which was created by Eliseo. Another is named Featherhorn by Colby Brinkman Steel and is very tall with metal feathers radiating from the top. Holding by Sarah Heath is an ironwork desk with a phone on top. Emergence by Colin McIntyre appears to be tentacles rising from the ground.
Hatt said the Arts Commission will be putting out a call for artists for wrap designs for area traffic boxes soon, and they will be posting the annual Arts and Cultural Grants cycle that should be up by late July. The information will be posted online at smtxarts.com.
