THE OASIS OF MURALS LEGACY PROJECT

Preserving More Than Paint

This project began with a simple idea: write an original song inspired by every Oasis mural. The research needed for those songs uncovered something larger—a history worth rebuilding and preserving.

THE MISSION

History, memory, art & music

The Legacy Project is assembling the documented history of the numbered murals, the people and organizations behind them, later public art, archival material, firsthand recollections, and original music inspired by each mural.

A wall can disappear. A building can come down. A story does not have to disappear with it.

Document

Build a reliable record for every official mural: subject, artist, date, location, status, photographs, and historical context.

Preserve

Recover old websites, brochures, photographs, videos, prints, programs, records, and other surviving evidence.

Remember

Record firsthand accounts from the people who were there, while clearly distinguishing memory from documentary evidence.

Create

Write original music inspired by each mural and eventually bring history, images, voices, and songs together.

WHAT WE ARE BUILDING

A living digital museum

The finished collection is intended to bring together all 26 official mural exhibits, artist histories, then-and-now documentation, oral histories, archival records, later public art, and the original music created from the murals’ stories.

Rather than hide uncertainty, the project keeps a visible research trail. Dates still being verified, conflicting records, lost photographs, and unanswered questions remain part of the archive until better evidence is found.

Not just what was painted—but who painted it, who made it possible, what happened to it, and why it mattered.

PROJECT STEWARD

Michael Collins

Michael Collins brings both documentary evidence and firsthand experience to this preservation effort. A surviving Year 2000 Action Council record lists him as a Director; archived Oasis website material credits him in the project’s early web history; and M20, Operation Iraqi Freedom, was painted on the north wall of his Collins Computer Innovations building at 6464 Adobe Road.

This Legacy Project uses Collins’s memories as firsthand testimony, not as a substitute for records. Where memory and documentation differ, both are identified and researched.

Independent historical preservation project

This website is an independent Legacy Project. It is not the official website of Action 29 Palms or the City of Twentynine Palms. Where official or organizational sources are used, they are treated as sources for the historical record.

See how sources, memories, photographs, and corrections are handled →