CHANGING THE VIEW
Anyone can be an artist
WIMBERLEY — “You’re never too old to do great things for your community,” is the motto the residents at Alexis Pointe Senior Living subscribe to.
On Tuesday, April 4, the residents and volunteers in the Wimberley community unveiled a mural on an on-site water tank at Alexis Pointe Senior Living. The mural project began last September when residents and volunteers began their mission to add color to the city with an art mural.
Katy Starr, community relations director at Alexis Pointe, was determined to get the ball rolling on the mural.
“It all started where most good ideas start. It was at a happy hour here for our independent living residents,” Starr said.
Photo by Allison Taliaferro
The mural on the water tank at Alexis Pointe Senior Living was designed by local artist Chuck Cordes. The design included Wimberley’s specific characteristics.[/caption]
During the happy hour, many Alexis Pointe residents mentioned the idea of beautifying Wimberley with an art mural because it was exhausting looking at the same view every day.
“The residents inspired the idea. When they said mural, I thought about my connections in Lampasas, Texas,” Starr said.
Starr’s father Bobby Starr is a part of the Vision Lampasas Committee — a group of volunteer artists and volunteers that help coordinate community mural projects.
“What they do is project the designs onto a wall. They outline, color code it and turn it into a giant paint by numbers and that way, everyone in the community can be an artist,” Starr said. “Even if you are not necessarily artistic, you can still participate.”
The Alexis Pointe residents and Starr began planning the mural nine months before the start date in September.
“Originally, we were going to paint the mural on the side of Brookshire Brothers, which was the residents' view, but that fell through due to safety and liability reasons,” the community relations director said.
The project ended up being moved even closer for the residents of Alexis Pointe to enjoy.
“We ended up doing it here on our water tank. Our parent company approved the water tank to be our new canvas and at that point, I had already gotten the entire community on board,” she said.
After the location of the mural had been set in stone, Alexis Pointe hosted a call for artists to design a mural inspired by the city of Wimberley. Residents also requested that the mural design have some specific Wimberley characteristics such as wildlife — Mt. Baldy and Alexis Pointe’s very own four-legged resident “Little Rivers” are hidden in the mural.
“Chuck Cordes was our local winning artist. His dad was a resident here, so that was cool,” Starr said.
Cordes’ father, Bill Cordes, was a resident at Alexis Pointe who celebrated his 100th birthday in September when the mural project began and passed away the following month.
“It is with deep regret that we lost Bill in late October, but we are so thankful that he saw his son working on something special for this town and community before he passed,” she said. “This mural has thus been dedicated to his memory.”
Starr’s devotion to this project was contagious throughout the town. Many of the community members outside of Alexis Pointe also had their hands on this project. A local ACE Hardware donated the necessary supplies and professional advice. Vision Lampasas helped prepare the water tank for the residents and community volunteers to bring Cordes’ mural illustration to life. Volunteers helped and community members donated around $6,000. Many of Starr’s immediate family members even added their own personal touches to the mural.
“I wanted to create an opportunity for the residents to contribute to the community in a neat way that was going to bring everybody together,” Starr said. “Something they could do with their loved ones and paint together and something that their loved ones can remember this time by. It is special.”
This project is bigger than an illustration on a water tank — it’s something permanent for the community of Wimberley to remind them of their loved ones and where they come from.
