Waco Forever

ARTPrentices turned downtown Waco’s 7th Street Plaza into a life-sized board game and explored their own stories through zines and mixed-media self-portraits.

Site Partner

City of Waco and City Center Waco

Year

2025

Program Director

Stephen Uhey

Location

7th Street and Austin Avenue, Waco, TX

Lead Designer

Haley Cash and April Leman

ArtPrentices

Abigail Aguilar, Bailey Hancock, Brittany Leija, Cheyenne Faught, Darrion Silmon, Elise King, Elizabeth Kassa, Hadara Acevedo, Ivy Moore, Jaice Gonzalez, Katy Kuykendall, Liesel Tarter, Lucy Edwards, Lydia Gilmore, Mae Pellicer, Montanah DeLeon, Naila Jamshid, River Ward, and Serena Arias

Mentors

Liliana Benitez, Andrew Pahmiyer, Christal Peterson, Vincent Thomas, and Lorena “Ema Sweetz” Torres-Martinez

About

At 7th Street Plaza, the 2025 ARTPrenticeship cohort helped turn a downtown block into a place to play. Designed by Haley Cash and April Leman and painted by high school apprentices alongside professional artist mentors, Waco Forever features Bridges & Brazos, a life-sized board game. Players follow a winding path, answering questions and taking on challenges as they race to the Waco Suspension Bridge.

Over four weeks of mural production, apprentices learned how to manage a mural site and transfer a design to pavement at full scale. They tried a doodle grid, traditional sign-painter templates, and virtual reality. The refreshed plaza celebrated its grand opening on April 30, 2026.

In the studio, 19 apprentices from seven local high schools created autobiographical zines and used them as starting points for mixed-media self-portraits. Both were shown in Reflections at Washington Gallery, where visitors could see how each artist carried a personal story from page to portrait.