{"id":389246,"date":"2026-07-28T16:01:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/389246\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:01:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:01:24","slug":"west-oak-cliff-residents-hope-mural-at-auto-shop-the-first-of-many","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/389246\/","title":{"rendered":"West Oak Cliff residents hope mural at auto shop the first of many"},"content":{"rendered":"

Near the corner of West Clarendon Drive, a small crowd on Sunday surrounded the outer wall of a west Oak Cliff auto shop in Dallas. Hands carrying brushes swiped up and down on an incomplete mural that aims to represent the life and history of\u00a0Oak Cliff<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One person filled in the colors of a paleta ‘ice cream’ cart while someone else thrashed away at the outlines of a reddish orange rooster and another person gazed at the portrait of a recent neighborhood resident killed in an explosion. The mural represents Oak Cliff and the determination its residents have to continue calling the area their home, said Jerry Figueroa, owner of J&E Express Auto Service.
\u200b
\u201cAqu\u00ed estamos y no nos vamos. We are here, and we aren’t leaving,\u201d he said as he stood outside his shop Sunday amid sweltering 95 degree weather.\u00a0
\u200b<\/p>\n

The mural on the outer wall of J&E is the first of many that are planned to be at 11 other auto shops in the neighborhood. The murals represent the owners’ perseverance. Less than a year ago, the future of their businesses and neighborhood were at risk under the proposed West Oak Cliff Area Plan.<\/a>
\u200b<\/a>
Residents and business owners along the Hampton-Clarendon corridor spent years battling the plan <\/a>since it was introduced by the city of Dallas in 2020.
\u200b
The plan calls for a newer, more urban version of west Oak Cliff. Drive-through establishments would be prohibited in the area, building heights were limited to three stories and the plan promoted small multifamily and townhouse developments, along with commercial and office, in the neighborhood.
\u200b
Many residents and auto shop owners along the corridor <\/a>saw the plan\u2019s rezoning project as nerve wracking \u2014 they fear the possibility of being pushed out as the neighborhood transformed into something similar to Bishop Arts or other parts of Oak Cliff<\/a>. For months, residents and business owners gathered at meetings, Dallas City Council meetings and events until their concerns regarding the plan were heard.
\u200b
In August 2025, the city council approved the plan<\/a> to rezone the Hampton-Clarendon corridor, but with updates. The new zoning would continue to allow for mixed uses, including auto shops and restaurants, and preserve the continuous historic retail character of the stores.
\u200b
J&E is the first to be painted. Painting the shop is a way to beautify the shops still here and use art as a form of resistance, Figueroa said. Each shop painted will be within the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Funding for the mural came from community donations, a grant from Texas Woman\u2019s University and money raised by\u00a0Somos Tejas, a statewide Latino advocacy organization that\u2019s committed to boosting civic engagement in neighborhoods throughout Texas, said Giovanni\u00a0Valderas, an art professor at\u00a0TWU.<\/p>\n

The mural’s creation was a community effort. Valderas and his former student Issy Martinez were able to team up with Figueroa and brainstorm what they wanted the mural to be and represent.
\u200b
Figueroa imagined the mural as the Virgin Mary surrounded by the history, the driven community, joy and culture that makes Oak Cliff the neighborhood he loves, he said. He took that idea to Martinez, who painted the mural.
\u200b<\/p>\n

The bright colors on the outside wall of the shop make J&E hard to miss. The Virgin Mary rises in the mural, and below her are portraits and glimpses of Oak Cliff history and culture, like roosters that roam the streets, a man selling elotes, a\u00a0classic lowrider<\/a>, police officers and first responders, local business owners and a few residents, including\u00a0Sylvia Collins<\/a>, the 79-year-old activist who was killed in a gas explosion at an Oak Cliff apartment in May.
\u200b
\u201cI grew up around here,” Martinez said. \u201cSo I wanted to incorporate my childhood and what I grew up around. All around Oak Cliff, people are hustling, selling their flowers, selling their paletas. And a lot of barbers and a lot of nail salons. So I was like, okay, \u2018this is a hardworking community, that’s another thing I need to check, and I want to capture.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bThe idea to have more art in the neighborhood and create a community-driven mural district with other shops grew from there, Valderas said.
\u200b
They wanted the mural to be a community project. On Sunday, groups of people stood at different spots of the mural, painting away and participating in their own personal way to help finish the wall.
\u200b
\u201cIt’s amazing that the community is coming out and the community wants to help create this thing,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cIt’s just lovely. It’s honestly breathtaking.\u201d
\u200b
Somos Tejas, Figueroa, Martinez, Valderas and other residents and supporters see this mural as just the beginning. To continue painting Oak Cliff with its rich history, they’ll need more donations, Valderas\u00a0said.
\u200b
A community block party planned for next month will close off Montreal to Hollywood avenues near 2220 West Clarendon Drive on Sunday, Aug. 2 to reveal the final mural at J&E. The block party will be from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and help raise money for future murals at the 11 other shops, Valderas said.
\u200b
Anyone is welcome to participate in the block party and enjoy food, music, free back-to-school backpacks, lowriders cruising through, a vendor market and more.
\u200b
\u201cHaving a moment like this, where we all come together, it’s all the same purpose, wanting to really unify each other, that’s, like, the most beautiful thing,\u201d said Thaiss Loaeza, a volunteer who helped paint the mural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Near the corner of West Clarendon Drive, a small crowd on Sunday surrounded the outer wall of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,137102,102,104,103,109711,109410,88945,137101],"class_list":["post-389246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-arts-entertainment-visual-arts","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-area-de-oak-cliff","tag-tp-art-and-the-city","tag-tp-oak-cliff","tag-tp-redadas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389246","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=389246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}