123The House in Tie-Dye

Around the corner from the pizza vaudeville, a little wood-sided house has gone full tie-dye — pink, gold and turquoise poured down the siding like the building came out of the wash on the best possible setting — and its gables have filled up with faces. Willie Nelson presides on one end, braids and headband, rendered with real portrait chops. Bob Marley anchors the other corner. In between: a laughing man in a green jacket, a singer in white at an old radio mic, a kid in an astronaut helmet, a raised fist, a hamsa hand, a bee the size of a housecat.

It's signed @VENTRILL-ART — Ventrill Art Co., a Waco artist who bills himself as The People's Artist and runs everything from murals to paint parties to candle-making classes under the motto “Love, Peace, n Art.” Downtown gets the festival walls and the grant committees. Out here on Valley Mills, a working artist turned a whole building into his business card, and the street got a free gallery out of the deal.