Artist adds to 'City of Murals'

Seamus Wray remembers that he painted his first wall mural when he was six years old.

Then he got punished, but his current wall mural will bring him $10,000, he said.

This is his nearly completed work on the south- and east-facing walls of Tucumcari's long-abandoned Princess Theater on Main Street downtown.

Restoring the theater for community use has become a centerpiece of continuing efforts to revitalize Tucumcari's downtown area through city government and Tucumcari Main Street.

Wray is being paid with executive funds from the city's Lodger's Tax proceeds. The city commission authorized this expenditure in October, along with money for more new murals.

Thanks in large part to Doug Quarles, a former Tucumcari artist now living in Tucson, Arizona, the city already has earned a reputation as a "City of Murals."

Wray, a recent arrival in Tucumcari, presented himself and samples of his work late last summer to the Tucumcari City Commission and offered to paint a mural for free, and do more for commissions if the free one turned out.

Last fall, he converted the single-story west wall of the building that houses the Tucumcari Fire Chief's office into a portrait of Tucumcari's first mayor, James Alexander Street, and two scenes from his colorful life.

City officials liked it, then gave him the job to do the Princess Theater walls.

Wray has been working on the Princess Theater walls since early November, getting some help from a friend, Thomas Anker, who lives in Denmark, but is in the U.S. on a long visit.

Wray met Anker when Wray was an exchange student in Denmark during his senior year of high school from 2011 to 2012, he said.

Anker, who speaks clear, unaccented English, said he has always wanted to visit the U.S. and was very happy to help with the mural project.

On the Princess Theater's wall, Wray is paying tribute to the work of Tucumcari and Quay County.

The Princess's south wall now displays a large portrait of Arch Hurley, who had championed the irrigation district now called the Arch Hurley Conservancy District in his honor, and a portrait of a power line worker.

On the east facing wall are representations of construction, farming and ranching, Wray said.

Wray arrived in Tucumcari last summer after living in a van in Southern California. He was impressed by Tucumcari's existing wall murals and its low cost of living, he said.

He made his pitch to the city commission, he said, and now he is working on the third wall mural of his career.

Before he came to New Mexico, he said, he painted a mural on a wall of an art-centered restaurant in Valencia, Calif., called Blaq Square.

Wray said that except for high school art classes, he is self-taught.

"I got so good at art that I was selling paintings all over the country," he said.

Aside from his wall murals in Tucumcari, Wray also took first place in art competition this fall judged by local artist Bill Curry for The Gallery, Etc., Tucumcari's artists' organization, for a portrait he painted of President Donald Trump.

As complete as the mural looks today, Wray said it's not complete. He plans to return to work on it when he comes back from visiting family over the holidays.