Mural art festival dreams big
Weather puts a temporary damper on an event that adds color throughout the city
A street painting mural that reads “Dream Big” in rainbow letters on Preston spans the pavement between Travis and Main. The technicolor artwork faces Bravery Chef Hall. At least a dozen 5-gallon Benjamin Moore paint buckets pepper the block that’s being protected by traffic cones and off-duty police officers.
Three men pause in the shade to admire their handiwork. They started painting the mural early Friday, before the late evening rainstorm forced them to call it quits. By mid-Saturday the sun was out and their art project complete.
“Dream Big” is exactly what Elia Quiles set out to do when she first pitched an idea to move “Big Walls Big Dreams,” a mural-painting festival, from Art Basel in Miami to Houston. Things didn’t always go according to plan, though by Memorial Day weekend, her two-year vision came to fruition.
For the past five years, she and husband, Noah Quiles, co-founders of UP Art Studio, have covered a block in Miami’s Wynwood Art District with murals for the international art fair.
“It’s a very different vibe from Houston,” Elia says. “All the art world is there.”
Her idea was to replicate the mural-painting festival in Houston, the couple’s home base, but with a Bayou City-specific twist: sprawl.
“We work with a lot of management districts, that’s how it spread out citywide,” she explains. By Saturday, more than 25 artists were completing murals at 15 locations across town, from Winter Street Studios to Harrisburg Tunnel and beyond. Some of the artists, such as Anat
Ronen, are local. Approximately seven creatives were flown in from out-of-state.
Cristhian “Golden305” Saravia, creator of “Dream Big,” couldn’t make the trip due to the weather. He oversaw the construction of his mural remotely.
It’s not how Elia envisioned the weekend would go, though she’s just grateful they pulled it off. “Big Walls Big Dreams” was initially approved two years ago, then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and she lost almost all of her funding.
“Houston Arts Alliance cut our grant in half and a number of sponsors pulled back, so I had to reimagine it,” Elia says. “Fortunately, Johnnie Walker fell into our lap. They wanted to be tied to an art event — that was fortuitous.”
The timing felt kismet. Johnnie Walker signed on as a premier sponsor to announce the arrival of Johnnie Blonde, a new whisky that promises a “surprising taste of sunshine,” and is available exclusively in Houston.
Originally, the Scotch whisky brand and “Big Walls Big Dreams” had a Saturday party planned as part of the festival’s designated “Refresh Stops,” a place for those visiting each mural site via driving tour or bike tour to pause with live music, refreshments and face-time with the artists. Heavy rain and thunderstorms washed that idea down the drain, taking many of the 3D and 2D chalk artworks along with it.
Not all of the weather-related changes were bad. Elia intended the festival to end on May 22, but was able to extend if through the holiday weekend as rain slowed her initial schedule down.
Pedestrians taking advantage of Saturday’s blue skies stopped to admire Ronen as she put the finishing touches on her “Balloon Dog”-inspired canvas. (The original mirror-polished, stainless steel sculpture is by Jeff Koons.)
“Animorphic distortion makes it look as if he’s standing on the ground,” Ronen shared of her four-legged subject. “I like reflective things. And anybody can relate to this — it’s a toy.”
She adds that working in public spaces challenges her to excel. That, and a race against the clock. She and neighboring artist Naomi Haverland will complete their respective pieces in less than 24 hours. They each got a head start late Friday to feel out their canvases.
Haverland, who is based in Florida, puts the finishing strokes on a T-Rex wearing a party hat.
“Another museum rejected it,” Haverland says. “I thought it would be fun for kids, because it looks like the dinosaur is going to jump out at them.”