The San Antonio Mosaic on the River Walk

The Mosaic Story
by Luiza Inez Newton

Across the street from the Alamo is a simple limestone and waterfall "paseo" weaving down to the River, where, if you have keen eyes, you can see a vivid Venetian-tiled mosaic of blended Tex-Mex cultures.

Commissioned by architect O'Neil Ford, and designed and executed by Tom Stell Jr. and Charles Winans in 1981, the San Antonio Mosaic is currently endangered because the City, instead of fixing a water leak on Losoya Street above the artwork, wants to rip the mosaic from thewall and move it to an unknown destination.

"Tourists love it, but few natives even know it exists. The only living one of the collaborators is Charles Winans, a vigorous 61-year-old artist. O'Neil Ford, a mentor of Winans, was the far-sighted architect who helped save La Villita during Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and, later, argued with the powers-that-be against tearing down historical houses for Hemisfair '68."

Ford also designed the Tower of the Americas, much of Trinity University, and several "lujoso" houses around San Antonio. He was a fervent advocate of using native materials instead of post-modernist synthetics; as well as an active liberal politico who served on the National Endowment of the Arts in the 1970s. Ford died in 1982.

Tom Stell Jr., the trio's other true visionary, was an ornery, quirky painter and mosaic-maker from Cuero, Texas. His father, who is featured in Pioneer Hall next to the Witte Museum, might have been the only sheriff in Texas who never carried a gun.

Part of the "Dallas Nine" group of artists in the 1930s, Stell created and abandoned works all over the state. He died shortly before San Antonio Mosaic on the Paseo del Alamo was completed. Each of these men in their times have dealt with the politics of art in Texas. The story of their mosaic epitomizes their struggle.

Charles "El Wino" Winans is a '60s survivor who hails from Texas pioneers, but spent much of his 1950s youth on the West Side of San Antonio. In his life, he has worked with individuals and institutions as varied as Doug Sahm (whom he managed during Sahm's Mercury Records days), Chet Helms (Family Dog & Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, LA Oracle in El Lay), the Arts Institute at the McNay Museum, La Villita artists, Dr. John, Pedro Rodriguez (pre-Guadalupe), Joe Bravo's SAMA Cyber Cafe, and the New Ars Gallery.

Tom Stell Jr. died in 1980, just after beginning work on the mosaic. Winans completed the work according to Stell's design, and installed it, with Ford supervising, in one night, December 12, 1981. A few years later, repairs to the tiles were needed because of water damage. Winans fixed the artwork in 1987, with financial help from Tesoro Petroleum, but the problem remained - because the street itself is leaking. Winans never dreamed the City would fail to repair its own streets, especially since the mosaic is a few yards away from the entrance to the busy Hyatt hotel.

Fast forward a decade later, when Winans, to his horror, saw the condition of the mosaic. Visible leakage had occurred all around the border, and more tiles were missing or buckled. Three years ago, with the assistance of a now-ex-personal manager, Winans raised private money to restore the piece. He didn't want to begin the restoration, however, without the street leak being permanently fixed.

The City's representatives at Parks & Rec and in various arts offices seemed hell-bent on moving the mosaic instead of fixing the leak. For a few years, health problems (a stroke and a heart attack) kept Winans distracted from pounding more pavement to get support for the artwork. He was also compelled to fire his manager because she was in favor of signing on to have the mosaic moved.

The City's sole attempt, in 1999, to solve this problem was to apply caulk to bridge bolts and install a row of bricks from girder to girder under the bridge. The water and street pollution, however, still leak down onto the mosaic at the point where the bricks meet the girders. What's strange is that, if one walks on the Losoya Street bridge, one can see that the City crews forgot to finish bolting down the bridge, so every time a car drives over the connecting metal piece (where the water leaks through), a flapping piece of metal is exposed, presumably dangerous both to automobiles and the structural security of the bridge itself.

Can the City not fix a single leaky bridge, especially for the sake of a landmark of which our much-adored tourists are quite fond?

Winans contacted KENS-TV in April 2000. They did a brief report on the leak, asking why the City, which claims to support its art and its artists, is allowing the mosaic to disintegrate "in situ." At that time, this author, a long-time friend of Winans, wrote a letter to Mayor Peak asking the same question. Peak responded in writing:

"Both the City's Public Works and Parks & Recreation Departments have actively been seeking a solution to the challenges presented in preserving this work. A major challenge exists in keeping water runoff from the bridge above this work from continuing to damage this mosaic. This staff has installed barriers above the mosaic in an effort to channel the water runoff around the work. This has proved only partially successful."

Curioser and curioser: A couple of years ago, in an oral agreement, the City offered Winans $30,000 to remove the mosaic and repair it. Then he noticed something odd. In a contract of permission to repair the work, which the City had asked Winans to sign in 1999, there was a single clause that said that if the work were ever removed, it could be moved elsewhere by the City at its discretion. Smelling a rotten deal, Winans broke off both agreements.

San Antonio has an almost infantile-cum-schizophrenic, scaredy-cat relationship with the arts. What's acceptable and what's dangerous? What attracts tourists and what breaks new ground? If one compares this mosaic's history to the current lawsuit by the Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice, the City seems to want to spend more money fighting the arts than supporting them.

Ford, Stell, and Winans were revolutionaries in their day. (Winans is still breathing and creating, but he has little money coming in. With no arts grants and few places to exhibit, he has often felt like giving up entirely.) Like the Esperanza's constituents, the three men spent their lives in the pursuit of beauty and the discipline of art in its eternal battle with petty politics and class/culture "wars."

A few weeks ago, Winans met with Councilman Bobby Perez, who said he would re-introduce this issue to City staff. Meanwhile, the street remains unrepaired and the mosaic's tiles continue to loosen with every rain.

In some ways, the story of this one work of art is a warning to every artist who works here: The city's patronage of the arts can be fickle, indifferent, or downright hostile. Helping Winans restore this mosaic symbolizes the collaborative continuity with the past and fighting for the future of arts in San Antonio. Go check out the mosaic yourself. A thing of beauty should indeed be a joy forever.

Note: This article originally appeared in the April, 2001 issue of the San Antonio Current.