50 years ago Kerry Awn, Rick Turner and Tommy Bee painted Austin’s first mural. The year was 1973. The location was the side of the UT Co-op in the heart of The Drag. The people and places they painted were a mirror reflecting the cultural street scene of the time. Some you know, some you don’t. Many are now long gone. The aim of this documentary project is that these people, their stories, and what they created, are not forgotten.
Onward! Thru the fog.
23rd Street Mural Experience
A new kind of documentary
On the 50th anniversary of this historic art-ifact we have taken the oldest and most important mural in Austin, online. We’ve embedded within this virtual canvas 10 original short documentaries and a dozen other stories. It’s a portal transporting you back to 1970’s Austin when the spirit of Austin was born. Short films about Willie, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Johnny Winter give depth and clarity to why Austin was such a fertile place for groundbreaking musicians. Docs about armadillos, Oat Willie’s and peyote aren’t just absurdly hilarious but show what an entire community can create when they are all on the same trip. Taken together, these films preserve the people and the magical place known as Groovers Paradise – aka Austin, TX, 1973. Onward! Thru the fog. Enter Here
Help us preserve Austin — Donate today
Our mural project has ten short docs within it already and we are raising funds to tell ten more. Here is a taste of the stories percolating in the pipeline: Roe V Wade: The women of The Rag (Austin’s first alt newspaper) set in motion the legal proceeding that brought Roe V. Wade to the Supreme Court. Roky Erickson, Doug Sahm and The Fabulous Freak Brothers are all on the mural. And the moontowers around town — famous not just because of Dazed and Confused but because they were put up to keep away serial killers! All donations goes directly to filming, editing and embedding new content into the site. The Austin Film Society is a fiscal sponsor of this project so all donations are 100% tax deductible. Follow this link to the AFS page to donate now. Thank you for your support.
Guerilla Art-Vertising
Another way we are connecting people to Austin’s past is by placing stickers and signs around town at the physical locations where the history happened. QR codes link curious viewers back to that film within the 23rd Street Mural site. Look for them at the Elisabet Ney Museum, the Patagonia on Congress where the original Vulcan Gas Company resided and right at the foot of the Willie Nelson statue. Collect them all, win a prize!