Rep. Villalobos, City of Corpus Christi filing for exemption to preserve downtown public art, crosswalks<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWhen I found out about this mandate that was going through i was honestly heartbroken.\u201d, said Villareal.<\/p>\n
Victoria Villareal is the artist behind not one, but two of the electric art boxes turned into colorful landmarks in downtown Corpus Christi. she\u2019s passionate about creativity \u2014 and about everything that makes corpus unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy second box is actually based off Whataburger. it\u2019s based off my first memory when i moved here \u2014 it\u2019s just one of my favorite memories, fighting off seagulls while trying to eat our French fries.\u201d, said Villareal.<\/p>\n
Under TxDot\u2019s directive, the Downtown Management District and local artists were disheartened to learn that not only decorative crosswalks, but 25 of those vibrant electrical box murals could be removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe we are taking away from our culture versus adding to it by removing these boxes.\u201d, said Villareal.<\/p>\n
Thanks to strong community advocacy \u2014 those murals aren\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did get word back from chairman Hunter and representative Villalobos that our murals are saved.\u201d, said Arlene Medrano, Executive Director of the DMD.<\/p>\n
According to Medrano, the boxes are not included in the state mandate. She says this victory is just the beginning in the effort to protect downtown\u2019s cultural identity \u2014 and the creative investments of local artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so grateful there is so much interest in downtown art and art in general in our city. that everyone recognizes they aren\u2019t just painting on electrical boxes \u2014 they are the storytelling of our people. and they are very meaningful to our artists, residents, and visitors.\u201d, said Medrano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TxDot says electrical box murals don’t fall under mandate, are safe to stay. CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-25317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}