Three cherry pickers sat on a length of plywood early Friday morning, humming as their necks moved up and down. The machines suspended three artists nearly 150 feet in the air next to the old Dawson State Jail building on W. Commerce Street.
Netherlands-based muralist Rosalie de Graaf, 26, worked at the right end of the wall facing the Trinity River, perfecting the black stripes on the shorts of a young boy dribbling a soccer ball. Two other artists worked with muted colors to block off sections of the image, preparing them for details to be added later.
The smell of spray paint drifted toward the Trinity River, where wildflowers in pale pinks and bright yellows grow in patches.
Graaf and three more artists — Dallas-based Daniel Yanez and Houston-based Bimbo Adenugba and Ade Odunfa — will spend 10 to 12 hours at the building each day until their FIFA World Cup mural is complete.
The Dallas mural, dubbed One field, infinite smiles, was designed by Graaf in her usual hyper-realistic style, meant to highlight people and their communities with the utmost detail.
Tony Moore, president and CEO of the conservancy, said that as a former soccer player, the sport has a special place in his heart. The World Cup tournament being hosted in North Texas created an opportunity for him to combine his passion for soccer with his aspirations for Harold Simmons Park.
Moore expects a significant part of the park to be done in late 2028.
“Soccer to me is a big deal, and to have an opportunity to have a piece of art that will represent the fun and global impact of the sport is pretty darn cool,” Moore said.
The conservancy is a nonprofit organization chosen in 2018 to design, construct and maintain the new park in partnership with the city of Dallas and the Trinity River Corridor Local Government Corporation. The organization bought the old jail building, which sits on the western edge of downtown Dallas, in 2019.
“We chose this iconic location between the Margaret McDermott and Margaret Hunt Hill bridges [for the mural] because we wanted to place it somewhere with a visual impact,” Moore said.
Graaf said she was given full creative license for this piece, and Moore mirrored that statement, adding that only a few Texas-based details were added before the design was finalized.
The completed mural will feature four children performing soccer tricks from famous players while surrounded by bluebonnets and various other plants and animals. There will even be a Texas flag, Moore said.
“Our tagline for the park is ‘Where nature unites Dallas,’ ” Moore said. “It was important to us to incorporate some nature elements, especially when it sits on the bank of the only river that passes through the city.”
Running low on time, Graaf said the team used virtual reality glasses to sketch the design on the building before moving to color-blocking. She’ll add the details — shading, blending and highlighting — while the rest of the team continues the background.
Graaf, who started spray-painting when she was 18, has created over 200 wall paintings across nearly 20 countries.
“It doesn’t feel like work because it’s my passion,” she said. Her dream is to someday have a second house in the U.S. to continue exploring and sharing her art.
SAM co-founders Audrey and Thibault Decker started the organization in 2011 to inspire and unite communities, choosing art as a medium to do so.
“Art has the power to inspire the world,” Decker said. “The World Cup series is really about the power of soccer and how it can unite communities.”
Audrey Decker said the organization has an app called “Beyond the Walls” where onlookers can listen to an audio retelling of what it took to design and create the artwork.
“Every mural is a big ecosystem with a purpose, a plaque and an audio guide,” Decker said.
“The mural at the park highlights the future of Dallas through its inclusion of children and the bridging of a gap with the combination of various ethnicities,” she said.
After the mural unveiling, the conservancy will host a two-day Dallas Soccer Kickoff Fest starting March 30 with soccer teams, such as FC Dallas, and over 50 Dallas-based vendors.
Earlier this week, Wyland’s Whaling Wall 82 mural in downtown Dallas was covered in blue paint in preparation for a separate FIFA mural. The 164-foot-wide mural of six life-sized humpback whales first appeared in 1999 and resurfaced in 2020.
Audrey Decker said her and SAM are not associated with the heart-breaking cover-up and don’t support the erasure of public art.
SAM will also unveil a large golden cleat sculpture in Arlington as part of its World Cup art series, Decker said.