This mural in a tattoo shop was particularly pleasing to Juan Velazquez because “I’ll be seen by other artists.”
To 33-year-old charismatic Juan Velazquez, two events in particular were transformative to one young man’s game of life.
The first, an encounter with a high school art teacher.
“He watched over me,” Velazquez says of Haltom art teacher Michael Daniel. “He actually was the one who taught me how to paint. He put me in a lot of art classes.”
The other was COVID-19, better known as the pandemic that led to a wave of lost jobs, which impacted Velazquez, a victim of shutdowns and economic turndowns. Velazquez is an Army reservist, who out of high school took the “safe” route to making a living.
In other words, a job, any job.
“We always do what is safe … the safe job,” he says.
However, the pandemic made him reassess the wisdom of merely doing what was safe. Fortune favors the bold and risk-takers. A tattoo of a paintbrush was put on his arm to remind and drive him.
“If there was any other time to be an artist, this was it,” Velazquez says of his decision to make a career change. “I thought, ‘What do I have to lose?’ So, I just went for it. It worked out for me.”
One of Juan Velazquez’s newest murals can be seen at the corner of North Main and Central on the wall of The Original Mexican Eats Cafe — Del Norte. It depicts a scene out of ballet folklorico.
“Worked out” is one way to put it for Velazquez and the neighborhoods he beautifies and communicates with through his gift of ability and inspiration. Velazquez is the artist of about 70 public murals around Fort Worth. With them he conveys the emotions of joy and grief, among others, and he expresses the concepts of Mexican culture and history, as well as awareness, in an amazingly breathtaking uber-realistic style with spray paint.
During our conversation, he was finishing up a mural on the North Side — at The Original Del Norte, on Central and North Main, the successor to El Rancho Grande — a piece originally done by Jesus Helguera. In a bigger-than-life rendition is a man and woman dancing in the style of ballet folklorico.
His mural of Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, with the words “No Se Venda” on Hemphill Street was designed in an effort to oppose rezoning the area and gentrification in general. On West Magnolia sits perhaps his pièce de résistance, paintings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and Vicente Fernandez, the legendary actor and singer, “El Idolo de Mexico.”
“I like to paint. I’m just someone who likes to paint,” he says. “Painting just makes me feel like everything is OK.”
He’s dedicated to his murals in underserved communities because it’s his way of improving them.
He uses what is known as the doodle grid, a common technique for muralists, though he believes he might have been the first to use it in this area. It was something he was made aware of, “but I didn’t really understand it.” So, he did what anybody who lacks a certain understanding of something in the early 21st century: He went to YouTube.
In the doodle grid, artists simply make random, different doodles all over the mural wall. The artist then takes a picture of the doodles and imports the picture to an app where he superimposes the concept art that he’s drawn over the doodles. The doodles act as a point of reference. The painter is constantly looking between the wall and the smart phone or tablet to gauge where to paint.
Velazquez used the method to do the Vanessa Guillen mural on the South Side at 3604 Hemphill. The portrait of Guillen, the U.S. Army soldier murdered at Fort Hood in 2020, is what put Velazquez on the map.
Velazquez felt a bond with her because they were both Army soldiers. As it turned out, they both trained at the same time and the same battalion, though he did not know that at the time. And he didn’t know her at all, considering the Army keeps the men and women separated.
“I was following the story because she was military, I was military. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what,” he says. “I had read the news they found her dead. So, I wanted to paint a mural to bring awareness to her case.”
After the Guillen mural was finished, Velazquez says he went from 500 followers on Instagram to 5,000. Velazquez estimates that he has painted roughly 120 murals over the past two years, including the 70 or so in public spaces.
He is living his dream as an artist with a studio near his home in the Riverside area of town.
He is aware of his art history and is inspired by those who came before him. In addition to Jesus Helguera, Diego Velazquez, the leading artist in the court of Spaniard King Philip IV in the 16th century, is one of them. Frenchmen Edgar Degas and Van Gogh are two others, as is Frans Hals, the Dutchmen whose “The Rommel-Pot Player” is on display at the Kimbell Art Museum.
“My favorite artist is Edward Hopper,” Velazquez says. “I feel like he captures an era of American history beautifully. You get a sense of being there.”
Velazquez says he uses some of the “old masters’” techniques with his blending, something he taught himself. (Old master refers to eminent European painters from around 1300 to 1800 and includes artists from the early Renaissance through the Romantic Movement.)
“His work ethic was incredible,” says Mike Daniel, his high school teacher. “I would give him one assignment and he would usually complete a couple of works to go with that assignment or extend the lesson and take it to the next step.”
This muralist also is focused on doing for others what was done for him: teach.
“I believe what my art teacher did for me, I want to do that for somebody,” says Velazquez, who adds that he’s also picky about what projects he takes on. “I try to teach as much as I can to kids or anybody who wants to learn.”
He teaches at Artes de la Rosa Fort Worth Cultural Center for the Arts, a nonprofit on the North Side. He says he is committed to doing his part not only to pass along the discipline, but because he wants to be an ambassador to painters in underserved communities. The kids will paint, he insists, whether it’s in a place like Artes de la Rosa or illegally with graffiti.
Velazquez recently reconnected with his art teacher, Mr. Daniel, who asked him to come speak to his students at Haltom. The teacher wanted his students to see a living, breathing embodiment of one who makes a living as an artist.
“I told them to not focus on money because money won’t make you happy. It can, but you have to be doing something that you feel you have a purpose,” he says. “I’m 33. By now, a lot of my friends are not happy with their jobs. That’s the thing I find the most is, people hate their jobs. They put more effort into picking their spouse than their job, but in reality, you probably spend more time on the job than with your spouse. Pick a job you like doing. Money will come regardless if you’re good and passionate with what you’re doing.”
“I love my job.”
