Ganador the lucha libre grackle is ready to wrestle

September 20, 2019

Raaaaa-aackkkk! The screech of grackles is the sound of Austin, along with the twang of electric guitar from your aspiring-musician neighbor’s garage and electric saw from the remodel going on down the street. For some, the glaring (like she’s working things out), noisy, purple-black birds are urban pests. (For real, never park beneath a grackle-roosting tree.) But the ubiquitous bird also enjoys a surprisingly robust fan following, as evidenced by the number of grackle-painting artists, including Carly Weaver, Cathy Savage, and Caitlin B. Alexander. Kinetic and LED grackle art even graces the walls of Austin’s award-winning Central Library.

But the Austin artist whose grackles I absolutely adore is Christy Stallop, especially her lucha libre series. Yes, her grackles wear Mexican wrestler masks! Recently she branched out from painting on wood panels to sculpting a larger-than-life grackle, a project for which she won a TEMPO grant.

Ganador, an imposing figure with velociraptor talons, is temporarily on display outside the Manchaca Road Branch Library in South Austin. To learn how Christy constructed Ganador, check out her fascinating blog post.

His oil-slick feathers are made of old bike tires! Ganador stares blankly but regally from within his colorful lucha libre mask. It’s such a quirky, Texas-meets-Mexico piece. Christy will be talking about Ganador at the library on Thursday, October 17, at 3:30 pm, if you’d like to see it, and meet the artist, for yourself.

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Digging Deeper

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All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

9 responses to “Ganador the lucha libre grackle is ready to wrestle”

  1. Pamela Price says:

    Looooove this!!! Thanks so much for sharing, Pam! Although for a second on FB I thought someone had made tiny masks for real grackles. Hahahaha. This fine, larger-than-life creature is even better.

  2. What a handsome sculpture. I love it.

  3. Nell Lancaster says:

    I was in need of a lift, and “Ganador, the lucha libre grackle” made me laugh out loud even before I opened the post. ¡Viva Ganador!

  4. Nell says:

    Let me urge every reader who enjoyed this to follow Pam’s helpful link to the artist’s account of the making of Ganador. A delight, from conception to installation.

  5. […] winner in English) was selected to reside for a time at the Manchaca Road Branch Library, where I photographed him last September. And now he’s flown over to a much bigger stage at Austin City Hall as part of its […]