Mural Monday: Shay Scranton

By Debbie Wright

Shay Scranton is a Waco local who has recently contributed to the growing list of murals in the Waco Community. His mural can be found at One Day Bar , one of the new coffee-and-cocktails establishments downtown on Columbus Ave. As a local creative, Scranton runs his own graphic design company and has worked with multiple companies around town. His lifelong interests in drawing and illustration, combined with his passion for metal music and the alternative scene, have led to a collection of works with a special focus on death and dark themes. 

Scranton describes his most recent mural as “Deisel Punk “ with ties back to stylings of Mad Max, early comic book skylines, and inspirations from artists and creatives like Frank Miller and Kris Straub. “I really dig making these two-dimensional, cut-out looking silhouetted skylines. So, when the idea to do a skyline for this (the mural) it was perfect and really fun,” Scranton said. Though he is not normally a muralist, this passion project was kicked off by his friend Kyler Griffith, who is the owner of the new bar.  With previous works with Native Sons, Pinewood Roasters, The Glass Phoenix, and Common Grounds (where he got his start as a band poster artist), his reputation with well-known local brands has grown his company and has made him somewhat of a veteran in the Waco art community. “I’ve seen a lot of things come and go. I’ve been here long enough and been working with local companies in some graphic capacity for 15 years,” Scranton said.

Scranton started his career as an artist right here in the heart of Texas, though he spent his early life as a musician and has traveled far and wide. Since Scranton started in the music industry at the young age of fourteen, with the Waco punk band Well Inside Out,  music production and the alternative lifestyle has influenced his artistic style and personal aesthetic. “I am constantly experimenting with new ideas and styles and things, just to see what works…but when I started doing artwork related to music, band T-shirts were my favorite things to do. The style kind of developed around that. It was very detailed oriented and I want to create images so detailed they tell their own story,” Scranton said.

Scranton specializes in shirt designs, band posters and logo designing. With subjects ranging from monsters, Dungeons & Dragons designs. Many of his works are playful yet dark expressions with high contrast colors; complex, hyper-stylized characters; and heavy metal lettering. This has evolved from some of his past projects like Funeral Confetti (his art novelty company), where he designed custom enamel pins, patches and did home screen printing. Along with that, he has worked with other media and even produced a full-length Dungeons & Dragons show called Darkest Dove that can be found on Youtube. He hinted there were some new things in the process of being completed, however, he prefers to keep some things secret until they are complete. For more recent work, you can find him on social media @shayscranton and through his website at http://www.shayscranton.com/. You can also contact him at [email protected].

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Debbie Wright runs the local Know Waco Podcast, which features upcoming events and activities happening in and around the Waco area. She is a recent Texas Tech graduate, with a major in communications and minor in public relations. She has lived in the Waco area for ten years and loves to work with local creatives and artists. 

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected]for more information.

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