A New Mural Signals the Coming of More Public Art

By R. Gabriel Villalobos

A vibrant new mural has brought a splash of color and community pride to Carlsbad, the result of a unique partnership between the city and a Permian Basin energy company.

The mural, located by the outdoor racquetball courts, is the work of artist Audrey DeBleecker, an employee of Permian Resources who paints murals on the side. The project aligned with a renewed push by the City’s Keep Carlsbad Beautiful program to expand public art beyond the painted electrical boxes that already dot the downtown area.

“We’ve been doing electrical boxes, and I wanted to focus more on community murals,” said Mary Garwood, the city’s beautification coordinator. “There are some in the downtown district already and Keep Carlsbad Beautiful is a part of that as well but just doing bigger and just moving throughout the community.”

Garwood, who oversees the Keep Carlsbad Beautiful program, said the initiative’s three pillars are to end littering, improve recycling efforts, and beautify the community. While cleanups like the annual River Blitz and the recent Lower Telshor Dam project remain a focus, she said commissioning public art is a key goal for the rest of the year.

The partnership began organically through an established relationship between the city and Permian Resources, a company that regularly supports local initiatives.

“Permian Resources partners with us on different things here in the city,” Garwood said. “Every year, they do tree plantings. They donate time and funds to different things. I work with them on community cleanups, too.”

During a conversation late last year with a public relations representative for Permian Resources, Garwood mentioned her goal of installing larger murals. The conversation revealed that the company had an in-house creative talent who could take on the project.

“They brought it up before Christmas, they have an in-house muralist,” Garwood said. “Audrey does murals on the side, and this is something that they would want to partner on.”

From that point, the process moved swiftly. DeBleecker prepared a mood board and exchanged ideas with city officials to develop a design reflecting Carlsbad’s character.

“She bounced back some ideas back and forth and then came up with a design that the City of Carlsbad loved,” Garwood said. “We vetted it a bit and kind of tweaked it a little bit to get it to where we thought it should be.”

DeBleecker began work on the mural on Monday, May 6, and completed the primary painting by that Saturday. The final stage of the project included a hands-on component for local youth, turning the installation into a true community effort.

“We had some students from the Teens in Action group from the Anti-Drug and Gang Coalition come out on Saturday,” Garwood said. “Then, on Monday the 20th, we got some students from the Boys and Girls Club to come down right after school to make the finishing touches.”

While this project was funded largely by a private partner and developed through direct communication, Garwood confirmed that future publicly funded projects will feature an open, competitive process.

“If all goes well, I did apply for some New Mexico Clean and Beautiful grant money,” she said. “We plan on doing one at the water park, but we just need to make sure we get the grant first.”

Because Permian Resources provided the bulk of the funding for this mural, the artist selection was guided by that partnership. A fully City-funded project would follow a different path.

“Anything that’s funded specifically by the city 100 percent, through Clean and Beautiful grant monies and different things, those will absolutely have a public call for artists,” Garwood said.

The project represents a model for how corporate partners can help accelerate civic beautification goals. As Carlsbad continues to invest in public art, the completed mural serves as both an aesthetic landmark and a symbol of collaborative community development.