New street banners highlighting the work of local artist Morgan Egan are now being displayed downtown and are a part of the Main Street Program placemaking initiative. Above, a city worker places a banner on a lamppost. Below, one of the banners stands tall downtown. Photos courtesy of the City of San Marcos
PAINTING THE TOWN: Local artist has work featured on new downtown banners
If you find yourself passing through downtown San Marcos along East Hopkins, look up. There you’ll see the vibrant works of local artist, Morgan Egan.
New street banners are now being displayed downtown and are a part of the Main Street Program placemaking initiative.
“We belong to a huge network of downtown professionals whose main goal is downtown vibrancy,” said Josie Falletta, Downtown Coordinator for the Main Street Program. “It means tourism and visitor attraction, it means a downtown that looks inviting and clean and welcoming.”
Egan is a well-known tattoo artist within the San Marcos community. Known for her floral and folk-art style, Egan is the owner of the downtown Classic Tattoo shop. The new banners have a bright, Texas wildflower theme.
“It’s an honor to be chosen by the City of San Marcos for the banner project,” Egan said in a statement. “I have loved watching my city grow artistically and make aesthetic choices that reflect the vibrant, creative culture that we’ve always had here.”
Egan mentioned that she found inspiration by imagining old textiles or bandanas with Texas wildflowers. Egan also found interest in the rhythm and style of old fabric designs and wanted to see how the elements of folk-art textiles could be used to portray the specific types of flowers that are located in Texas Hill Country.
“It’s really important to us to celebrate and highlight our local artists because they really just contribute to the culture of San Marcos,” Falletta said. “If there’s an opportunity for us to implement public art into anything that we do, we definitely want to go that route.”
This is the second time that the city program has included the talents of local artists. Previously, artist Rene Perez’s art was featured on downtown banners for the city of San Marcos.
“Our goal is that they are reusable year after year,” Falletta said. “We’re slowly adding new sets of banners so that we can display them seasonally.”
Throughout the year, the city rotates different banners to coincide with various events, seasons and holidays. Messages on banners often include encouragement to keep the river clean or feature local school mascots. The most recent banners were installed with the help of City Transportation crewson Sept. 1 in front of City Hall.
“We’re really excited to highlight local artists,” Falletta said. “We’re really excited to be able to share her art with the community.”
