Erin Rodriguez and her 11-year-old daughter Evie were returning from a brief girls’ trip in Florida when they saw familiar, big, bold colors on display on the wall at the San Antonio International Airport.
On a late and warm July evening, the Rodriguezes painted a giant star with the San Antonio Spurs’ signature colors and ribbons on a giant Fiesta floral crown setting over the horizon as part of a mural by artists Sandra Gonzalez and Malachy McKinney.
Several more families packed the Centro de Artes Gallery lobby area for community art day. Now the artwork they helped make is on display at the Terminal A baggage claim area.
“To have seen so many different people of all different ages and from all over San Antonio participating and then to see the final product is really special,” said Erin Rodriguez, who is also a senior public information officer for the airport.
The city paid the artists $43,000 from airport capital improvement funds for the piece titled “Culture, colors, and traditions of San Antonio,” an acrylic paint mural on movable panels that will show San Antonio’s “hidden treasures” permanently at the airport, even through future construction.
The community painted 20% of the mural by the end of the event. Gonzalez and McKinney got married three days later, and finished the project late September. They worked on touch-ups through October and installed the mural in the airport last week.
“We used vibrant colors and warm colors to represent San Antonio,” Gonzalez said. “[The community] was there, they helped out in that creation, they were part of the process.”
Last Sunday night, when the Rodriguezes returned to San Antonio and saw the finished mural, they realized it is one of the first things visitors see when they arrive at the San Antonio airport.
“It looked very different from when everything was white,” Evie said. “It’s not like one person did it. They added a bunch of other people to it, so it’s like really a part of the community.”
Bright colors show visitors some of San Antonio’s biggest landmarks, like the World’s Largest Cowboy Boots at North Star Mall and La Antorcha de la Amistad, and other “hidden treasures” like the McNay Art Museum, the Historic Guadalupe Theatre, the Rose Window at Mission San José and the San Fernando Cathedral. Instead of a sky, Gonzalez and McKinney painted water ripples, in honor of San Antonio’s creeks.
Eleven-year-old Evie Rodriguez remembered that in July, she painted yellow, pink and purple ribbons on the Fiesta crown, and Erin Rodriguez painted turquoise onto a Spurs-colored star.
While installing the mural, Gonzalez said she heard comments from visitors who were taken away by the details and colors, saying, “That is so San Antonio.”
“The designs were inspired by community feedback and by some of my most cherished memories in San Antonio,” Gonzalez said. “The colors, the ribbons, the flowers, it showcase[s] our Tex-Mex culture.”
