Brent Herling led volunteers in painting the Forest Lane wall on Saturday mornings: Photo by Danny Fulgencio
More than a year after a pick-up truck plowed through a section of the colorful mural on Forest Lane, the wall has finally been repaired. Mural champion Brent Herling says he will soon get to painting, restoring the psychedelic design, seemingly over the homeowners’ wishes.
Herling first restored the mural, with the help of a variety of community painters, in 2014. He was sick of seeing it blighted with graffiti, and sought to systematically repaint the original design first created in 1976 by the graduating class from W.T White High School, who clearly drew inspiration from the trippy time period.  For the most part, neighbors have been supportive of his efforts — he got signatures of approval for his project from dozens of homeowners, and many have even handed over cash to help cover the cost of paint. Herling often makes it a community event, inviting groups of children to come help with the restoration process.
But homeowner Danny Scott has been against any efforts to repaint the mural, which he called a “hideous eye sore,” on NextDoor. Scott has never answer our calls nor has he provided statements to any other media in Dallas on the topic.
After the wall outside Scott’s property was damaged by the truck, Herling got fed up waiting for the homeowners to repair it, so in May he built a wooden replacement fence. That sparked a visit with police after some of Scott’s friends tried to forcefully stop Herling’s work.
“Anyone involved is a criminal. No one has a right to touch my section of the wall. This is ridiculous and has to stop,” Scott posted on NextDoor at the time.
That didn’t stop Herling from returning to paint his temporary fence, which he later sold on e-Bay for $580.
Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates says the homeowners are working with the city, and the delay in repairing the wall was related to insurance matters. She says the matter of the mural, however, is something for the neighborhood association to tackle.
“The neighbors do seem to like it,” she said in June.
In recent weeks, the wall was repaired, although not restored exactly as it was. “The men working are simply attaching narrow strips to plywood to create lines to represent the brick mortar pattern but the facing will be flat. Kind of like wall of tiles,” Herling says. “Too bad, I was hoping they would secure the original style 3-D brick looking molds.”
Nonetheless, he is already making plans to repaint. Whether the homeowners will do anything to stop Herling remains to be seen.
