Artists must use their voices to help honor slain soldier

Roman Jr. (“Donkeeboy”), a Houston-based street artist, is a remixer of pop culture. His artwork and murals can be found throughout Houston at the likes of Minute Maid Park, 8th Wonder Brewery, Shipley Do-Nuts, Riel Restaurant and Burns Original BBQ.

I’ve been making art for over 20 years.

I was born in Houston and lived in Mexico for seven years as a child. But I grew up in southeast Houston. I went to Sanchez Elementary, Deady Middle School and Milby High School.

My mom, Donkeemom, taught me how to draw when I was 6. At 13, I started selling art, and in my late 20s I became a full-time artist. She and I have painted more than 30 murals together since 2005. But in the last two months, we were asked to do a couple of murals that hit really close to home.

About a week after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Floyd’s friend, OG Mugz, reached out and asked if we could do a mural in Third Ward, across the street from where Floyd grew up. While we were painting it, 40 to 50 people from the neighborhood gathered around to watch us and show their support. It was hard not to get emotional.

Then earlier this month, we painted a mural of Vanessa Guillén at Taqueria Del Sol in southeast Houston. Guillén, whose remains were recently found, was a soldier who had been missing from Fort Hood since April. The mural is in the same neighborhood where she grew up. I grew up there, too.

We didn’t plan to paint either of these murals. I wish we didn’t have to — that Floyd and Guillén were still alive.

Guillén was 20 years old. She was serving our country. It takes a lot of courage to be able to do that. We’re supposed to respect our soldiers who sacrifice themselves to go out and fight for our country. If we don’t respect our soldiers, who are we going to respect? Who’s going to respect us?

For Guillén’s mural, a lot of people were asking us via Instagram, Facebook messages and emails to paint a memorial. Being from that neighborhood myself, I just felt like we had to do something. The night we painted it, we weren’t even done, and 100-something people showed up for a prayer vigil. The outpouring from the community in her memory was incredible.

These murals serve as a meeting ground. People go and communicate with each other and plan things out, and it shows the world that people are supportive. When you visit a mural, you can see all the candles and flowers and offerings that are being placed — physical signs of support. I hope the families look at that and can see the love that they’re receiving from the community and that art can help bring awareness to their situations.

Murals can motivate people to research, learn and maybe inspire others to do their part. They can create conversation or amplify a conversation to keep it going longer and louder.

After we finished the Guillén mural, I wanted to keep the conversation going, too. One mural is not enough. So we put out a call on Instagram for other artists to paint more murals. Our goal is to help to facilitate 20 murals for her throughout the city, because she was 20 years old.

And the response has been overwhelming. We had many artists, property owners and business owners reach out and ask what they could do and how they could help. Break Free Hip Hop School, where I teach art classes, volunteered to help organize the effort. We have had tremendous support from artists all over the city — Noke, Franky Cardona, Clear, Roger Trevino, Mariah Martinez and many others — and all of these murals are being donated, like the Floyd and Guillén murals that Donkeemom and I painted earlier this summer. It’s our hope that other artists in cities outside Houston will see this movement and paint murals of their own as well.

Houston is such a supportive city. Houston always holds up Houston. It’s important for people to back the Guillén family and do what we can to support them. The more that we unite and come together, the more noise, the more awareness we can bring.

Speaking from personal experience, I know a lot of us Latinos don’t speak up — and I feel that those days are over. It’s time for people of any race and any color to receive justice and equality.

Artists might not always feel like we have much of a voice, but in situations like this, we do have a voice. We have strength. At some point, the art is not about you, it’s about what it can be used for, and murals can be used for the greater good. How many people are going to see these images throughout the day and be reminded of what’s going on?

There’s strength in numbers, and I hope that as artists, business owners, property owners and Houstonians, together we can help spread the word and get these messages of equality across to others around the country. For George Floyd, for Vanessa Guillén, and for anyone who has been the victim of injustice.