The intersection of San Pedro at Cypress, just a little south of San Antonio College, there's a tune-up shop, a Starbucks, a Walgreens and a convenience store.
But it’s what’s next to that convenience store on the wall of a vacant brick building that really makes that corner of San Antonio stand out.
“My name is Colton Valentine. I'm a local muralist in San Antonio. I'm just out here painting a mural of Chris Paul,” the artist explained.
Valentine has painted on that building for the last two years. Until recently, that stretch of wall was about 80 feet. But then a storm struck.
“Part of it fell down from like a crazy storm we had a few months ago. It was a flash flood that [got] behind one of the walls over here — all the pressure of the water just kind of like tilted it over. And then my whole mural came down.”
Luckily, about 45 linear feet of the building still stands, and Valentine continues to paint on what’s left. He changes out the subjects of his murals with some regularity.
“Yeah, the reason I do this on this wall, and I changed the images here so often is that's my practice,” Valentine explained.
The mural of Chris Paul joins all the dozens of other Spurs murals around town created by other muralists. But Valentine’s motivation for painting the team’s new point guard is different from every other because of who Chris Paul is.
“He's actually a really smart, intellectual player who I've seen interviews of him on the internet or YouTube, podcasts, giving really good advice on keeping your peace and emotional intelligence stuff, not like NBA sports, I-can-jump-high type of stuff. So I really appreciate him for who he is,” Valentine said.
The SAC student community is tight-knit over its shared purpose of getting an education. But it's also loosely scattered, since students come and then, after a time, go. He thinks the murals can act as a focal point.
“So what I do is I use this wall to kind of build with the community,” he said. “And I have painted locals from here, and I've painted celebrities or rappers in hip hop world that I listened to or have looked up to — or I know that the youth kind of look up to — because that's what this is all about. Kids get inspired by this. It's insane.”
One of the ways that muralists make a living is through sponsorships.
“I do invite sponsors to pitch in money, if they want to see their logo and be a part of my mural to where it just so happens,” Valentine said. “Like on Tuesday night, I finished painting the logos for these for this mural. I had some sponsors, and then Wednesday, like four news channels came out. So that recipe worked well!”
