Desert Fiesta Mural

Vast Graphics owners Ellen and Chris Ruggia completed a public art project in downtown Alpine, Texas during fall of 2021. The work is a 3-panel mural featuring artwork by Ellen, depicting flowering branches of a Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) with several species of insects visiting the flowers for food and pollination.

The mural, titled Desert Fiesta, is painted on the outer walls of a courtyard in the 100 block of West Avenue E, in a plaza adjacent to “Art Alley”, a collection of more than 10 small- to medium-scale murals by a wide variety of local artists.

The fundraiser has been a partnership with Alpine’s Gallery Night, Inc., the Alpine nonprofit that organizes the popular 2-day ArtWalk festival every November, and that is responsible for the prominent series of large-scale murals by Stylle Read installed across Alpine’s downtown.