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Downtown Beaumont is getting a colorful makeover

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This weekend, more than a dozen artists will spend their first trip to Beaumont literally “painting the town red” and blue, and yellow, or pink, green and purple.

Beaumont’s Mural Fest kicks off today and will continue through Sunday with live paintings at several downtown buildings and on Calder Avenue and local artists painting downtown electrical boxes.

The festival’s central hub is 308 Orleans Street, where a pop-up gallery showcasing the muralists’ work will spill out into the street with vendor booths, food trucks, live music and a children’s art zone.

The event also includes a mural “treasure hunt” to find the location of the city’s only West End mural – a two-story piece created by Houston’s Scott Tarboxx.

“We ran into historic site issues at First National Bank,” said event co-chair Min Dai, who scrambled to find a new wall for Tarboxx’s work.


Dai decided to do a last minute site finding game. He’ll post a photo of the wall, and anyone who finds it and takes a selfie with the artist can win a prize – like a festival t-shirt.

On Saturday evening, a building on Orleans Street will be painted with light as an artistic light show begins after sunset.

It’s one of the ways organizers Jay Muzacz and Dai hope to make the weekend a success that extends beyond the festival’s end on Sunday at 6 p.m.

“We will double the number of (existing) murals in just 5 days,” said Muzacz, who brought 16 well-known muralists from Texas to Taiwan for the event.

“It’s the private sector that has to get things started,” said Dai, who has worked with local organizations like Ubi Caritas and the CVB to find event sponsors.

“And everything for that is locally sourced,” he added, from the food trucks to the multiple scaffolding rentals needed to complete the work.

“Everyone contributes where we can,” Dai said.

The goal of making the Mural Festival an annual fixture on the city’s calendar of events is a part of Dai and Muzacz.

“You have to create an infrastructure where the city funds local arts,” Muzacz said. To build that foundation, “you have to have some notoriety right from the start, and that takes some know-how.”

This is the experience that Muzacz has after 25 years as an internationally renowned artist and participating in several mural festivals; and he saw the benefits of such events not only for local artists, but also for the city as a whole.

Take Flint, Michigan, which has “a lot in common with downtown Beaumont,” Muzacz said. Both are industrial towns that have experienced downtown decline with too few businesses and too many derelict buildings.

But after several years of annual mural parties, where urban chic inspired urban development, “downtown Flint is now buzzing,” Muzacz said, adding, “People who see this want art for their buildings”.

And it’s a win-win for local artists as well as the urban landscape.

“Think how cool this downtown will be in 5-7 years,” Muzacz said, noting, “These murals can be the identity of the city where you can rekindle the narratives that are important to this place.”

Emphasis is placed on the people and places central to Beaumont’s history throughout ongoing work, such as the postcard mural near Rao’s on Calder where Corpus Christi artist The Dask One incorporates icons such as Spindletop, the Gator Country alligator, the McFaddin-Ward House and the Big Bopper in letters spelling Beaumont.

On Fannin Street, several colorful pieces complete the urban canvas started by Kimberly Brown, whose portrait of Frida Kahlo has been a destination backdrop for senior portraits or those looking for a taste of local art.

Flint artist Krystal Cooke, a newcomer to the mural scene, drove more than 20 hours to attend the event at the invitation of Muzacz, whom she met at a mural festival of Flint two years ago.

She paints a portrait in tribute to local guitar legend Barbara Lynne.

Cooke, who is also a musician, was delighted to learn that she would have the opportunity to meet the subject of her work as Lynne and her family plan to make an appearance while Cooke finishes the piece on Saturday at 1 p.m.

His artwork is a colorful tiger mural painted by San Antonio artist Paul Garson, who “has been doing street art for 8 years and loving every minute of it.”

Garson, who paints about 50 murals a year, describes himself as something of a “Bruce Wayne” – a Monday-Friday price analyst and weekend street artist.

He soaks up Beaumont on his first visit to the city – seeking out local restaurants to support and attend The Art Studio, Inc.’s first Thursday artist show, while giving back to the city at through his art.

“I’m super excited to see this in the upcoming graduation photos,” Garson said.

For other artists, the theme of their work reflects the site on which they paint.

Beaumont native Henry Smith decorates a wall outside Barber’s Trade School with a black and white image of profiles of black men.

And further down Orleans Street, the biggest play of the festival – a high-profile play featuring Lady Justice – takes place at the Byrd Law Firm.

On Calder, MAKE Creative Space owner Melissa Londenberg gets two murals — one on each side of her building.

“I was so excited when I found out who my artist was, because I was thinking of redoing the mural (on the east wall) myself,” she said. “I wanted something that better reflected what my space is like, and while looking for ideas on Pinterest, I had actually pinned several pieces by Houston artist Caroline Truong. When I found out it was she who was my wall, I was jumping up and down.

For Truong, who painted his first mural several years ago at Dai’s restaurant in Tokyo, returning to Beaumont “is cool because it gives me a chance to see my progress” and to participate in his first mural festival.

The west wall belongs to Puerto Rican muralist Fabian Rey, whose work at the Austin FC football complex has been featured on ESPN. It reinforces Londenberg’s creative message with a Picasso-like figure holding a paintbrush, beneath which is the phrase “MAKE your mark”.

Londenberg is making its own mark on the community’s first mural festival, hosting a block party featuring hourly public art activities, food trucks and vendors.

“Everything really fell into place over the last eight days,” Londenberg said, adding that she wanted to help “bring part of the festival that way” where her mural and a room at Cocomo Joe’s are. and Rao.

But she also wanted to leave her mark in a deeper way.

A portion of vendor proceeds and on-site donations will go to benefit the local CASA organization.

“I am a mother of two adopted children, so this is an organization close to my heart,” she said.

Londenberg hopes the success of this weekend’s event will lead to future festivals and progress on Beaumont’s burgeoning arts scene.

“The goal is to bring art to Beaumont and inspire others,” she said, adding, “It’s a great learning experience for the future. We can only get better.” from here.

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