From Vision to Icon: The Story and Future of the World Heritage Missions Collection
In 2015, San Antonio’s historic Missions achieved a global honor: designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This was the beginning of a mission for me to create the definitive World Heritage Missions collection—not just to document history, but to find the future caretakers of our city’s soul.
An Epiphany: A New Brand for a Great City
The project began with an epiphany. In a 2015 meeting with Judge Wolff, he suggested I create a grand-scale art collection of the new “World Heritage Missions.” I instantly saw the potential: a body of work that could unite a culturally fractured community under a single banner of shared heritage. As an artist, my calling has always been to leverage a brand or a legacy visually. This was an opportunity to help rebrand San Antonio itself, away from cheap tourism and toward its rightful place as a city with a unique, 300-year history.
A Mission to Find Caretakers
This collection was created to last for centuries. Therefore, the mission was never just about creating art; it was about finding the very best caretakers for it. For 300 years, the community and parishioners have been the stewards of the Missions themselves. My work is a continuation of that stewardship. My mission is to find the individuals and organizations who will safeguard this artistic legacy for the generations to come.
The vision was validated when the collection was installed for a major public exhibition at the San Antonio International Airport, becoming a “dignified statement of our community” seen by millions. The video below captures the spirit of that installation and the forward-looking call to patronage.
The 300-Year Investment: An Invitation to Patronage
As the video states, this is an opportunity to make a lasting impact. Knowing that organizations have spent equivalent dollars on temporary, three-month installations at the airport, imagine the ROI of a permanent one. What if you could amortize that cost over 300 years?
This is the opportunity for a visionary organization to become a caretaker to a grand-scale set of this historic collection. It is a chance to acquire a piece of San Antonio’s history and, in doing so, become a permanent part of its future. My pledge, for the rest of my career, is to do everything I can to make this work more valuable in the investment-grade art world.
Do you want to be a part of this story? Let’s talk.
Go Deeper.
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