CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The election may be over, but Joshua Fraedrick says part of his campaign will remain visible across Corpus Christi long after the political signs disappear.
Fraedrick, who ran for Corpus Christi City Council At-Large, used campaign funds and sponsorships to commission five murals, one for each City Council district. The project paired local artists with businesses willing to turn blank walls into public art.
Fraedrick said the idea came to him after seeing what happens to campaign signs once an election ends.
“After the mayoral election two years ago when I was at our landfill, I just saw how many signs are just being taken, hopefully to be recycled, but there are just so many of them just being thrown away that it kind of made me a little bummed out, and I thought, 'OK, there's got to be a better way to do this.'”
Instead of putting all of his resources into more campaign signs, Fraedrick said he wanted to spend some of the money on something that could stay in the community.
“You know what I'll do, I'll sponsor a bunch of murals, a way to permanently beautify our city, you know, and not do so many plastic signs, and so that's where the idea came from.”
Fraedrick said the murals cost about $10,000 total, although some of that cost was covered by sponsors. Schiit Audio, a company that recently moved to Corpus Christi, contributed the bulk of the funding for one of the murals, according to Fraedrick.
In a previous campaign finance post covering July 1 through Sept. 24, Fraedrick said his campaign had received $9,663.20 in monetary contributions and $650 in donated printing and sign credit, for $10,313.20 in total contributions. He reported $4,132.48 in expenses during that period.
Fraedrick said social media helped him find both artists and businesses willing to participate in the mural project.
“I put it out there that I was looking for artists and places to put these, and multiple people reached out and were like, Hey, I do murals, or hey, I own a spot.”
Visibility was important because the murals were still part of his campaign effort.
“I had to kind of eliminate some of the people that were like, you can put it in my backyard on a fence. Like, no, no, I need a little visibility out of it. This has to still contribute to the campaign.”
Five districts, five murals
The project includes work from several Corpus Christi-area artists.
In District 5, artist Jen Seymour transformed a wall at B&J’s Pizza on Staples Street with a Corpus Christi-themed mural.
In District 4, Jason Juranek created a mural along the side of Skipper’s Hideaway on NAS Drive, where it can be seen by drivers heading toward Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.
Isabella “Maple” Carrasco created another large mural at the Holiday Inn Corpus Christi Airport & Conference Center. Schiit Audio sponsored that mural.
In District 3, artist Daniel Dzulworks De León began transforming a wall at Kiko’s Mexican Restaurant, with a design featuring a parrot in a sombrero playing guitar.
In his social media posts documenting the project, Fraedrick described it simply as “5 Murals, 5 Districts, 1 City.” At the time of one of his final campaign updates, three murals were completed and two were still being finished.
Fraedrick emphasized that the businesses and artists participating in the project were not necessarily endorsing him or his candidacy.
“All artists were paid. That's incredibly important. They didn't volunteer to do this, and anything, you know, businesses and artists, it's not an endorsement of my campaign; it's an endorsement of the city.”
Bringing public art outside downtown
Marc Neely, owner of Neely’s Printing And More at 1011 Louisiana Ave., also partnered with Fraedrick on the project and said he liked the idea of spreading public art beyond the downtown area.
“I think it's very cool, especially like when you go downtown and you see all the murals that were done down there, to be able to spread it out actually into the city makes it a lot better, you know, so you don't just have to go downtown to see beautiful artwork.”
Neely said the murals give residents a chance to encounter artwork throughout Corpus Christi.
“You can drive around it, you know, spots of it here and there. It really makes the city look better.”
Fraedrick said the murals also represent something he hopes to continue beyond this election.
The day after Election Day, he pointed to the difference between traditional campaign materials and artwork intended to last.
“I can see the value in the plastic signs and the social media paid advertisements and stuff like that, but you know today is the day after the election and a lot of those signs are going to go away. This is going to stay.”
For Fraedrick, that permanence was the point of the experiment: turning money ordinarily spent on a temporary political campaign into something residents can continue seeing after the votes are counted.
“This is going to be up for as long as it possibly can, and I feel like that's an all-around good thing, a way to really help our city do. Really help our city just be beautified.”
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