Greetings from Juárez & El Paso. When we painted in El Paso, TX we worked with an amazing local artist Dave “Grave.” He introduced us to the architects & developers that ended up commissioning the mural. During our down time from painting, Grave gave us a great tour of his two cities that sits right on the border of Mexico.

El Paso is a city that is melting pot of Mexican and American (Texan) culture. One of Victor’s favorite artists El Mac spent some time here, and we got to see a series of his works in both America & Mexico. The way that he paints his portraits with spray paint techniques is extremely impressive. We ate a lot of Mexican food and got to check out the downtown museums, etc.

Dave and his friend Vanessa took us over the bridge into Mexico to visit the city in Mexico that was once named in 2010 "murder capital" of the world, Ciudad Juárez We just so happened to be there while the Pope was visiting to speak on violence happening in the city. As always, there’s a lot of sensationalized news coverage, so we wanted to check it out for ourselves.

While we felt safe with our local guides. One thing we couldn't help but notice pink crosses painted all over the city. For 20 years and counting, women have been disappearing with no explanation. The pink crosses are being spread throughout the city to spread awareness of this quietly kept "femicide" going on right now. The rest of the city was full of color, hand painted signs, bright fruits and smiling people. We were only in Juarez for one morning through lunch, but that time sticks out to us the most from our time in El Paso. Traveling with locals is the best way to go. 

We were told that because the pope was in town, everything was cleaned up and painted over recently to give the city a cleaner impression. Dave spent part of his childhood growing up here and had a lot of stories when it came to graffiti, politics and the lifestyle. When we parked the car, we paid some folks a few bucks for “parking” to keep an eye on our stuff. We’re not sure if that was legit but happy to help some locals out regardless.

Dave brought us to some abandoned buildings that were popular graffiti spots. A lot of the art was painted over but it gave new artists coming some fresh canvases to work on. There was also a man in the basement area casually injecting something into himself but didn’t even look twice at us. We just made sure to watch our steps with any needles after that!

The locals were all really nice and seemed happy to interact with visitors like ourselves. The streets and markets were full of people going about their days. We had some amazing food (don’t remember the name of the place) and then headed back to the US in the afternoon. It was a brief experience but felt like we were so far away from America in such a short drive.

El Paso & Juarez travel photography by Lisa Beggs

Year: 2016