Artist crafts new mural in Nixon

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With Nixon’s original mural on 2nd Street repainted and refreshed, artist Lucas Pastorfield-Li has undertaken a new mural on a wall adjacent to the Gazebo Pocket Park on 3rd Street. It was completed Aug. 27, 2020. 

The design for the new mural is based off of icons associated with the City of Nixon, such as its water tower, oil wells and the Nixon Theater. This mural is a different sort of project to take on, said Pastorfield-Li, who completed the first mural in the beginning of August.

This time, Pastorfield-Li started from scratch, with a wall that is not uniform in texture.

“My previous murals from scratch is just a more familiar process,” Pastorfield-Li said. “Now the one thing that is going to be a little bit more difficult is the wall is the former Nixon theater. Parts of it are interior wall and parts of it were formerly exterior but not all exterior. You have surfaces ranging from concrete, cinderblock, brick, even indoor bathroom tile. There’s a lot of different surfaces. That's a lot to adjust for as you work because the goal is to make it all look very flat.”

Pastorfield-Li said the nature of the new design, being so heavily influenced by straight, even line work, necessitates a different approach, one he is accustomed to using in his original artwork.

“It's a lot of standing close and then stepping back and back and forth standing close, I'll do my outline, I'll put a line down, I'll think it'll look straight, I'll have to step back,” Pastorfield-Li said. “I there's part of the surface is on even and it makes the line look unstraight I actually have to make the lines on straight to fool the eye so that it does look straight from a distance.”

The mural’s organizer, Pablo Aguirre, said he is thankful to have an artist like Pastorfield-Li working on these murals in Nixon.

“We’re extremely honored that artist Lucas Pastorfield has elected to share his many talents with our community,” Aguirre said. “His contribution will be long lasting for present and future generations in this town. What a legacy and gift he’s giving. Thank you, Lucas.”

Aguirre said future projects to improve the aesthetics of Nixon include a display showing “the many cultures” of Nixon, a renewed formal entrance, as well as fencing.

“The mural will be welcoming our visitors to historic, downtown Nixon, Texas, and include a rendering of our demolished Nixon Theatre,” Aguirre said. “The park now sits on the site of our theatre. Plans to landscape and enhance our Library grounds are also in the works.”

Pastorfield-Li said the community supported and welcomed him in this venture of mural painting. While painting the first mural, he was offered refreshment and a borrowed ladder after his broke.

“Folks would come over all the time and asked if I needed anything,” Pstorfield-Li said. “And I can be a little shy about that stuff. M instinct is always to be like, ‘No, no, I'm good. I'm good.’ Don't worry about me.’

“Then finally, one day, I was like, ‘You know what, I can go for a Gatorade.’ So this guy named Roy came by, and I don't know if word broke out or anything, but like, I just kept getting Gatorade after that. think they're like ‘Finally we know like one thing if you like’ and so I got so many Gatorades, I got a cooler full of Gatorade and it was just so sweet.”

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