New street murals make a splash in downtown SMTX

From swimming turtles to soaring dragonflies, ground murals now illustrate San Antonio St., reflecting the natural life of San Marcos. 

The Texas State Honors College and Stelos Scholars program, partnered with the city of San Marcos and Michelle Wilson, watercolor artist and muralist, strive to add a splash of color and life with new sidewalk murals that reflect the nature, culture and community found in the city. 

“I hope [the community] has an experience of surprise and delight, that they just have a really nice, memorable experience exploring them for the first time,” Peter Tschirhart, associate dean of the Honors College, said. 

The initiative to implement these murals started two years ago when the Stelos, an Honors college program that develops leadership and creative skills with travel, workshops and alumni networking, looked for new ways to bring life to under-appreciated areas of the city. 

According to Tschirhart, the Stelos brought questions about how to improve San Marcos to city officials. The city gave it a few options and let it decide how to add new life.  The Stelos chose to design sidewalk curbs. 

“Curb extensions are designed to improve pedestrian visibility along the roadway, but often they’re just left blank and there’s just nothing in them, and a few cities around the country have started to use them as spaces to do creative projects,” Tschirhart said. “We thought there was a great opportunity there, and the city was eager to do that as well.” 

The Stelos got the idea for these murals from the city’s downtown area plan, which details the growth in downtown that the city hopes to implement over the next 15-20 years. Josie Falletta, San Marcos’ downtown coordinator, said one of the biggest goals of this project was to bring more visibility to this part of town, especially regarding pedestrian visibility and to add some intersection improvements.
 

“I hope [the project] functions as our pilot, and we can see how the materials perform over time, what the maintenance is like and hopefully, we can repeat it in different areas,” Falletta said. 

There are six new sidewalk murals on curb extensions and crosswalks, starting at the Price Center and ending at Fredricksburg St. 

Wilson, a Texas State alumna and previous honors college student, has a few other murals across town. The Stelos decided Wilson’s design appealed to the San Marcos community. The city and the Stelos worked together to decide on a local nature theme for the murals. 

“We were trying to find things in the natural environment that people have some attachment to because they’re local and they’re indigenous species,” Tschirhart said. 

The project was about the city’s improvement and the community’s involvement and investment. These street murals are an effort to get people out of their cars and into downtown for more people to see our city the way it’s intended. 
 

During ArtFest on April 12, community members casted votes and pitched names for the murals’ characters. For example, Dilly is the armadillo’s name, and Justin Beeber and Bumbledor are the bees’ names. 

The San Antonio St. sidewalk murals saw community involvement in more than the naming of the murals’ characters. It had many challenges, including a rainy third day of painting. In Wilson’s dedication speech, she shared a memory of trying to clean everything up in the rain and coming back to multiple community members holding tarps over the paint to keep the murals dry. She shared that one man who rode his bike and was not part of their volunteer team stopped to help. 

“It was just a really wonderful moment to see people come together that don’t even have to be here, they’re not necessarily part of the project, but they’re there because they care for our town,” Wilson said.