East Austin Barrio Landmarks: Holly Street Mural Guide

In 1991, local artist Felipe Garza was selected to organize the painting of the newly erected sound wall around the Holly Street Power Plant with imagery that would celebrate the local heritage and make the invasive industrial site more visually bearable. The project began with approximately ten murals, though many artworks blend into one another along the walls, as they were first and foremost a collaborative project amongst graffiti artists and other members of the East Austin community. Garza invited over a dozen artists to take part in the artistic endeavor, as well as neighborhood youth who were encouraged to participate. Due to lack of funding and organizational troubles, many of the murals were never completed or were continuously worked on by artists over the years.

Graffiti is a raw, expressive art form that was booming across New York City in the 1980s. Skam, a graffiti artist from the New York-New Jersey area arrived in Austin that same decade, bringing the spirit of street art with him and inspiring many artists in East Austin to immerse themselves in the art form. Though Skam died at a young age just a few years after the Holly Murals were painted, his legacy as a dear friend and mentor lives on in the other muralists who painted alongside him and consider him a founder of graffiti in Austin. Several artists who participated in the painting of the Holly Street Murals, most of whom were in their twenties at the time, were active in promoting Chicano culture in the arts. Many of them were part of the League of United Chicano Artists (LUCHA), an organization that played an essential role in fostering the artistic community on the east side. Original artists include: Alfredo “Skam” Martinez, Ambray Gonzales, Arleen Polite, Armando “Taner” Martinez, Boomer, David Santos, Felipe “Flip” Garza, Fidencio Duran, J. Senco, Jean Aubrey, Joe Arellano, Joe Perez, Myko, Oscar “Tez” Cortez, Pete Guerro, Rab, Raymond “Rage” Mendoza, Robert “Kane” Herrera, and Steven Rendon.

Today, many of the murals remain on the sound walls and efforts are underway to preserve them. However, when the initial mural project took place, there was little consideration of creating long-lasting artworks, primarily due to a meager budget and the lack of accessibility to durable and weather proof paints and sealants. Since the walls were constructed for the primary purpose of noise abatement, they were built out of cinderblock: a cheap and porous material in which water was absorbed very readily, damaging the painted murals quite easily. The location of many of the murals also made them susceptible to intense sunlight, causing rapid deterioration of the artworks. Given all of these circumstances, most of the murals have faded to varying degrees and have been tagged with graffiti over the course of three decades. A number of murals have been restored or touched up by the original artists, some officially commissioned through Art in Public Places and others unofficially. Some murals have unfortunately been destroyed due to their contentious content, with portions of the wall now replaced with wooden planks. There is also a handful of new graffiti and tagging unrelated to the original murals, primarily on the western wall.

All of the murals around the Holly Street Power Plant are of utmost consequence and represent the strength and creativity of the Mexican American community that comprises an important portion of East Austin. Organizations like Arte Texas, founded by Bertha Delgado, and Art in Public Places (AIPP) are still underway to preserve and restore all of the murals that remain. Arte Texas is an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting public art in East Austin by Chicano, Mexican, Latino, and Indigenous peoples. Many of the original artists who painted the Holly Street Murals are part of Arte Texas, and they have led the way in working to assure that the artworks are archived, remembered, and preserved for years to come.

While the history of the power plant and the Holly neighborhood has been one of considerable struggle, these murals commemorate a community’s solidarity and their daily existence, capturing the joys and the spirit of Mexican American culture. The history of this site must not be forgotten. Born out of segregation and environmental racism, the Holly Street Power Plant has become a space where people dealt with social inequality to bring about positive change. It speaks not only to the injustices prevalent amongst the Mexican American neighborhoods in East Austin, but to Austin as a whole, and efforts to preserve and add to these murals has only just begun.