Seven Walls, One Story: Arttitude Brings Walls of Pride to Cedar Springs
Call for Artist Submissions.....
Dallas's Gayborhood is about to get a lot more color. Arttitude, the local arts collective known for amplifying underrepresented queer and trans voices, has teamed up with the Cedar Springs Merchants Association (CSMA) to launch Walls of Pride — a two-year public art campaign that will place seven new murals along Cedar Springs Road.
More Than Paint on a Wall
Arttitude's Jerome Larez has been clear that this isn't just a beautification project. The murals are meant to preserve community memory, celebrate LGBTQ culture, and give the neighborhood visible, permanent reminders that its stories matter. CSMA President Kevin Miller has framed it similarly: the campaign is about honoring Oak Lawn's past while investing in a future where public art keeps telling the community's story.
Cedar Springs has been the symbolic and literal center of Dallas's LGBTQ+ life for decades — bars, community organizations, the annual Pride parade route. A lot of that history lives in memory, in photographs, in oral tradition. Walls of Pride is an attempt to put some of it permanently on the street itself.
The Rollout
The full campaign calls for seven murals over two years. The first three are already in motion, with specific sites yet to be publicly announced beyond that initial wave. Arttitude has a track record here . The organization previously ran the Dallas Mural Art Project, which brought murals (and an anti-graffiti community-service component) to other parts of the city, and has been behind cultural projects like the Transpose film and the MariconX exhibit at the Latino Cultural Center.
Apply for the First Mural
If you're an artist and want to be part of the first wall, Arttitude has an open application:
Details on scope, timeline, and stipend are handled through the form itself — worth a look even if you're not sure you're "mural-scale" yet. Public art campaigns like this tend to be looking for a range of styles, not just muralists with existing wall portfolios.
Why This Matters for This Community
Salon Naturale readers know the throughline: queer visibility isn't abstract, it's built one gathering, one publication, one wall at a time. Cedar Springs getting seven murals dedicated to LGBTQ history is the same impulse that drives Drink & Draw nights and the Naked Salon — making queer culture and queer bodies visible in public, unapologetically, as a matter of course rather than exception.
Donations and sponsorships toward the campaign are also being accepted directly through Arttitude for anyone who wants to support the project without picking up a brush.