Lee Madrid paints the wall on the Nelson-Thomas Clinic early in the morning to avoid the heat. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice)
Muralist Lee Madrid is painting walls on Cedar Springs Road, and there is more to come
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
Lee Madrid is painting a mural on the side of the Nelson Tebedo Clinic on Cedar Springs Road with a small brush as if painting on a small canvas. That way colors can subtly graduate from lighter to darker, and he can fill small crevices in the brick, he explained.
Madrid has painted about 50 murals on exterior walls. Many are in Utah on public high schools and libraries. Others are in the Texas Hill Country.
In Dallas, one mural is on the side of Jerry’s Supermarket on Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff. Another is outside Wild Salsa on Main Street in Downtown Dallas.
His current project on the wall of the Nelson-Tebedo Clinic on Cedar Springs includes two sets of hands forming hearts with the AIDS Quilt in between them. Dallas Red Foundation is funding the project, which should be complete sometime in August.
Madrid begins painting at about 7 a.m. Because of the heat as well as cars that begin to fill the parking lot, he stops working at about 10 a.m.
He said he learned to paint as a traditional artist, working on canvas.
“I do a lot of canvas painting,” he said. Those canvasses are portraits that range in size from 2-by-3 feet up to 10 feet square. “That translates to become murals.”
After moving to Dallas, Madrid joined forces with Arttitude, the LGBT arts organization with a variety of projects that include numerous cultural and artistic projects. The film Transpose that was recently shown at the Dallas Museum of Art and the current MariconX art exhibit at the Latino Cultural Center are among its projects.
Madrid brought his Dallas Mural Art Project to Arttitude, which has helped him line up a series of walls that he and his team of artists will transform.
Dallas Red Foundation, a nonprofit that provides financial support to North Texas organizations that serve individuals affected by HIV/AIDS, funded the mural on the Nelson-Tebedo Clinic building as a gift to Resource Center, which operates the clinic.
John Anderson, who serves on the Mayor’s LGBT Task Force’s Quality of Life committee and is a member of Dallas Red Foundation, said the Task Force had been discussing the idea of rainbow crosswalks and other ways to distinguish and beautify the neighborhood. He said he was standing in the parking lot off Cedar Springs Road when the thought occurred to him, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a plaza of art?”
Councilman Adam Medrano, who chairs the task force, connected Anderson with Arttitude. They came up with the idea of murals. And Resource Center got onboard with the idea quickly.
“People in the clinic are having a contest to name the mural,” Madrid said.
The opposite wall will be a much larger project because that wall is two stories high. Scaffolding will have to be erected, Madrid explained.
Covering such a large space will take even more time, but Madrid said he’s building a mural team. He said anyone interested in participating should stop by Tuesdays through Thursdays, from 7-10 a.m.
The AIDS mural should be done by early August, he said, and then he will begin work on a mural to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. Madrid refers to it as “the transgender wall,” because it will honor the trans heroes who led the New York rebellion.
“The trans wall will have a huge image of Marsha P. Johnson,” he said.
Johnson, who described herself as a drag queen, refused to be arrested at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 and was one of the leaders of the Stonewall rebellion. She became known as The Mayor of Christopher Street, was active in ACT UP and died in 1992.
Madrid said he is “still looking for community input” on the complete design for that mural.
Madrid said his designs for the two facing walls are quite different. The Nelson-Tebedo wall is long and low, so he created a design that’s linear. The opposite wall, though, reaches up two stories and is more like a canvas.
On the long, low wall, he’ll be working around some signs affixed to the building and may extend the work out to cover several posts in front of the building that have been tagged.
Is he worried about tagging defacing the mural? No. Madrid explained that taggers don’t normally leave their mark over space that’s already been painted. In fact, he’d love local taggers to come join his mural team. In fact, he noted, the most famous artist to arise from the AIDS crisis was Keith Haring, who began his career as a tagger on the New York subways.
Once Madrid has decorated the walls on Cedar Springs Road, he said, Arttitude has put together a list of walls that property owners would like to see covered in his work. But he has a few months more work to go on the Strip, and he invites people to come out mornings to watch, chat or join in. Weather permitting, he said the best time to catch him is 8-10 a.m. on Tuesdays through Thursdays.