The first Texas Street Art Festival is set the week of Sept. 16-23 as part of the newly established Wood County Walls initiative.

Wood County Walls (WCW) was created in September 2022 through a joint effort of the Wood County Economic Development Corporation and the six EDCs from Mineola, Winnsboro, Quitman, Hawkins, Yantis and Alba.

The economic development project focuses community resources on the development of a shareable street art trail that runs through each city.

Over the past year, multiple new installations of street art have been created on exterior walls across the county.  Year two of the project will be kicked off with the start of the festival.

The event begins on Saturday, Sept. 16 with an opening ceremony at the Mineola Select Theater at 3 p.m. The designs for the murals will be unveiled.

It will conclude with the installation of a new street art piece in Mineola that will be created the week prior to the kick-off (see above). 

During the festival week, seven local and international artists will be painting walls in each of the six communities.  In conjunction with the Mineola Iron Horse Festival on Saturday, Sept. 23, each community will hold a ceremony to install its new street art piece into the WCW inventory.  

Plans include three walls going up at the NETX Prairieland classroom in Yantis, two pieces going up in Quitman, one in Alba, one in Mineola, one at the Reel Inn Lodge at Lake Fork, two in Winnsboro by visiting artists with at least four new ones by local artists.

Evening events are also planned for the artists, in  which the community may participate.

Saturday, Sept. 16, the artists will be welcomed with a dinner hosted by Quitman at 6 p.m. at Ancona Restaurant.

Tuesday Mineola will host dinner at Logan’s Place at 6 p.m.

Members of the public must pay for their meals.

Winnsboro will host a celebration at the Bowery on Thursday, also at 6.

Explore, interact, linger are the operational themes of the WCW project. Visitors are encouraged to explore the county by following the art trail and visit each community to share in the art.

While on the trail, visitors are encouraged to interact with the street art murals that are designed to create “instagramable” moments. While on the streets taking selfies, visitors are invited to interact with each community by visiting their shops, restaurants and other points of interest. 

The unique element of WCW is that the art is specifically designed to provide interesting back drops which work well with social media.  

International renowned featured artists include Miami-based artists Luis Valle, Claudio Picasso and Ivan Roque as well as Denver-based artist Patrick McGregor and Fenton, Mich.-based artist Kevin Burdick.  Featured Wood County artists include Lauren Pitre, Erica Fry, Chris Brown, Dennis Howard and Jaci Mouser.

By the end of the festival, WCW will add at least 20 new pieces of art to the trail.

Visitors are welcome to come out during the week and watch the process of the street art pieces being created as well as come enjoy the Iron Horse Festival activities on the 23rd in Mineola and visit each of the communities to see the finished pieces.

For more information about Wood County Walls and the Texas Street Art Festival, visit www.woodcountywalls.org.