One Texan's bucolic scenes are capturing the Lone Star State's heart. (Michael Esparza)
If Thomas Kinkade only painted fast-food chains, the result would be this Texas-based artist Michael Esparza’s Etsy store.
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Esparza, of San Antonio, had just moved back to his hometown in 2012 after studying art in Italy, he told Texas Monthly.
The first thing Esparza did once he was back in the Lone Star State? Go to Whataburger.
“Then right after that, I went to Bill Miller’s. I just needed a burger, and I needed a po’ boy. I was already full after Whataburger, but I didn’t care,” he said to Texas Monthly.
It was after dining at the fast-food chain that Esparza had a lightbulb moment — to create bucolic scenes featuring Whataburger and other notable Texas outposts.
“I wanted to make something that was super Texas. A landscape that was even more Texas than the landscape that we have,” he says. “A lot of people I would talk to in Europe, they would tell me what they thought Texas looked like. So I wanted to make those landscapes what they thought, but also as a person from here, I wanted to make them even more Texas. It’s like Texas squared.”
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Esparza started the series, intended to be “little beacons for where you live,” he said to Texas Monthly.
The artist started his Etsy shop in May and moved about one painting a month at a reasonable $15, until Jezebel senior staff writer Maria Sherman discovered the works earlier this month and sent a tweet about the collection. Now they are going for $25 apiece.
“Huge fan of this etsy store that apparently only sells romantic oil paintings of [T]exas fast food institutions,” the tweet said.
Since then, Esparza has been selling dozens of prints, Texas Monthly reported, and creating a lot of buzz on social media.
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But it’s not just Whataburger, Esparza is also painting an idyllic landscape featuring Bill Miller Bar-B-Q and Taco Cabana.
Something for every proud Texan.