A Costa Rican immigrant raised in Yukon, Oklahoma, recently completed a terrific-looking mural on the side of one of the buildings at the city’s landmark Yukon’s Best Flour mill elevator.
Channel 9 in nearby Oklahoma City produced a video about the mural and its creator, Carlos Barboza. Here is more from the report:
Barboza researched the city’s history, and he came up with a design that captures the city’s heritage and heroes.
The mural was commissioned by the volunteer group “Friends of Yukon’s Best,” which also restored the flour mill sign six years ago.
The mural unofficially titled, “Yukon’s Best” features a Czech Queen, the original Miller mascot, and the city’s most famous miller walking down an original main street.
“I think he’s already iconic enough where you don’t necessarily have to see his face,” said Barboza, about his guitar holding Garth Brooks.
Almost all of the work was done with spray paint. Fine details, like the hair of the Czech Queen, were done with a brush.
The Yukon’s Best website wrote this about the artist:
Carlos Barboza was born in Costa Rica, and at ten years old, moved to the U.S. He’s lived in Oklahoma ever since. He started drawing and painting at the age of six, and has never stopped. Carlos draws inspiration from many different things, from the Renaissance masters, to other muralists, and even to Andy Warhol. He says, “It’s a mixed bag of whatever images I come across on any given day.”
Barboza only recently began creating murals, before he focused mostly on paintings, sketches, and digital art. He humbly thinks of each new piece as “trying something new”, and if it comes out amazing, then it’s a pleasant surprise. “…if you go into a project thinking it’s gonna set the world on fire, you are more than likely gonna fall victim to disappointment.”
Barboza believes that local public art gives something interesting for the public to view, but also creates a sense of pride in the place they call home. “So, support local art! Without it, we are nothing but a blank brick wall covered in spider webs.”
The Yukon’s Best elevator remains by far the tallest structure in the city. The “Yukon’s Best Flour” lighted sign on top of the elevator was restored in 2013 after a $175,000 fundraiser.
According to an article in The Oklahoman newspaper, the elevator in Yukon was built in 1916. The Kroutil brothers produced Yukon’s Best Flour and other products until about 1970, when they sold the operation to competing Shawnee Milling Co. The mill closed two years later.
(Image of the mural via Yukon’s Best page on Facebook)