Since its inception, Hoodoo Mural Festival occupied a block of Polk St. in downtown Amarillo every September with colorful mural displays plus a bit of live music. But for their 2025 outing, going on this Saturday, September 27, event organizers made the decision to move the festival to Arts in The Sunset, with the goal of utilizing a space that aligns more closely with their mission, and to hopefully allow for some room to grow. HPPR’s Jenny Inzerillo sat down with Rachel Flores, one of the organizers of Hoodoo Mural Festival, to talk about the change of venue and what they have in store for this year's event. To hear the full interview, click the link at the top of the page.
“So the Hoodoo Mural Festival has been going now for, this is its sixth year, and in previous years it's been hosted downtown. This is the first year that it's moved to arts in the sunset, and we are really excited about it. It features live murals. It's a great way for our city to have beautification over the last several years, it's really beautified the downtown area. It also has live music. We've got local vendors, food trucks, and interactive art. It's just a really fun art party that brings together people from really far away, all over the Texas panhandle and further away, and just to celebrate the arts and really support arts in Amarillo”, Flores said.
One unique feature of the Hoodoo Mural Festival is the live mural paintings, where attendees will have the opportunity to see the artists work on material face-to-face. Flores talked a little bit about this aspect of Hoodoo. “People actually get to see them get painted, which is not something that you normally get to do, right? It's going to be really cool to get to see some live mural painting and actually get to talk with the muralist, learn a little bit more about their process.”
The biggest change this year attendees will notice is the change in venue, with Arts in The Sunset offering more space for both the muralists and musical acts. Flores continued, “We lucked out in that we already have a stage area, an outdoor performance space called the AJ Swope Performance Plaza. That allowed us to have our main stage, and then we've added a second stage. A lot of our stuff is actually going to take place in the outdoor parts of Arts in The Sunset, which is exciting for us, because we don't always do a lot of events that take place outside, for obvious reasons. We live in Amarillo, and it's not always the best idea, but we're super excited. It looks like it's going to be great weather this weekend, I think. We are also incorporating a lot more interactive components, which is what we're known for. We've got a miniature, but large-scale mural city that people are going to be able to go and kind of paint their own murals on it. We've got a pendulum pour. We have the Amarillo Museum of Art and the Discovery Center...to help us do a lot of those interactive activities, so it's kind of a nice community-wide way to get people more plugged into the arts while they're there for the event.”
Artists participating in Hoodoo include a mixture of local up-and-comers as well as some more well known established artists from farther afield. “One of the things I love is that there is a great mix of local artists as well as kind of big timers that are from as far out as Houston, someone from Memphis, someone from Denver.. So this year has a very diverse group. David Swartz, who's out of Denver, is working on the front part of our building right now, and he's got this very watery, fluid kind of look to his artwork. We have Floyd Mendoza, who's a return artist. He does a lot more Native American cowboy-esque type paintings. Dan Black is coming from Denton. He's very quirky. He's also a return artist that I think did a triangle like, kind of one of our temporary murals in previous years. And then we have great favorites like Blank Spaces that are going to be doing a piece, Rayla Ornelas that owns Rise Up Art, she's going to be doing a piece. And then some that are just kind of up and comers in our city, and it's a great opportunity. Blank Spaces take some time with them to actually show them, you know, the process of projecting and picking their colors and concept design and all of that. So it's definitely a learning process for a lot of our local artists as well,” said Flores.
While muralists are the main focus of Hoodoo, the other side of the event is focused on musical artists from a diverse collection of genres. The lineup this year, much like that of the muralists, includes acts both local and new to the area. Attendees can expect to hear music from Rayland Baxter, Midlake, Quaker City Night Hawks, local acts Blue Johnnies and Bardown, as well as a handful of DJ’s spinning some dance tunes at the silent disco including Gemini, Dan-E, VICES, and Bomb City Sound.
Hoodoo Mural Festival kicks off Saturday, September 27 from 3:00 PM CST to 11:00 PM at Arts in The Sunset, 3701 Plains Blvd. in Amarillo. For more information on the Hoodoo Mural Festival, you can visit their website or Facebook page.
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