Vibrant new mural breathes life to Indio's Jackson Street Bridge area. Take a look

Under the bridge in downtown Indio, you won’t find a lack of brightness and vibrancy.

Two Detroit-based artists, Ivan Montoya and Joey Salamon, have spent the past four weeks transforming the otherwise typical overpass into an outdoor gallery of masterful murals. Their colorful imagery spans the length of the Jackson Street Bridge on two sides as well as the pillars and underpass wall.

More than two dozen city officials and art admirers gathered on Wednesday to celebrate the completion of the mural titled “Full Steam Ahead” by the artists during the unveiling of one of the city’s newest public arts projects.

Montoya came up with the title after being inspired by the trains, classic trucks and people going to work in the mornings. He designed and painted the 1969 Ford F-150 mural on the east facing wall. He saw a lot of those trucks going by while working on the mural.

“You guys are lucky your cars don’t rust. In Detroit those old trucks won’t last,” Montoya said. He has a lot of good memories of his grandfather owning one.

Montoya and Salamon collaborated on the sunrise, sunset scheme. When you look at the mural on the east side it follows a warm color palette reflective of sunrise. On the west side it’s a sunset, so there are cooler hues.

“All these things we were implementing so that the pieces worked individually but as a larger whole,“ Salamon said. “It felt like it needed life injected into this area and like spots specifically under the bridge and so together using a bunch of color, abstract forms and figurative we were able to just mesh all these things together and pump a bunch of life into it."

The murals add to the growing number of public arts projects, some still underway such as the canopy of multi-colored umbrellas in a small alleyway off Miles Avenue. Several new businesses, including the recently opened Little Street Music and soon-to-open taproom next to an under-construction outdoor amphitheater are part of the city’s efforts to bring more foot traffic to the downtown area.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Indio murals: About the Jackson Street Bridge project