Making Memories With Head Country// Friends, Art, & BBQ Along With Downtown Tulsa's Most Instragrammable Walls
This post was created in partnership with Head Country Bar-B-Q. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep Go French Yourself creating.
Find this mural by Hurts Donuts…
I love exploring a city I’m visiting and capturing its essence. When I travel somewhere new, or if I want to play tourist in my own city, I like to find the best spots to take pictures. I so look forward to really capturing all the hot spots in all the cities I travel to and sharing them with you so you can also capture some amazing photos for your Insta grid. And we know it's for Instagram, right?! Laugh out loud.
So there are some people who never feel the urge to leave the house . They’re completely content to stay in the city they came from and literally just float in the 360 degrees that surround them. And then there’s the rest of us who can’t sit still . We have a love for travel and curiosity. We love taking risks, exploring new places, ideas, and foods. We even live for the day trips hitting that big magical open road exploring our own cities .
So I’m working with Head Country to feature some of Tulsa’s newer and not so new but awesome Instagrammable walls that are not to be missed today! It was the perfect Saturday catching up with my friend who also works for GFY, Jenna Mandel. We actually just did what we usually do and that is stroll downtown taking pictures talking about life and finding a perfect place to eat the barbecue picnic we packed along. Even though it was windy, we didn’t let that ruin our time together. We are both foodies and lovers of art and architecture. And a BBQ picnic was just what the doctor ordered for us. I have been nuts traveling and Jenna has been nuts in college so we needed this super chill day! Don’t you just love good BBQ on a weekend ? I crave it really.
“Good Bar-B-Q brings a meal together. But great Bar-B-Q? Well, that brings people together. It all started with a sauce. Simple concept… one that’s earned us a place at the dinner table for generations. Not too tangy. Not too sweet. Nothing fancy about it, really. Just a bold, rich, perfectly balanced blend of sweet and savory (with a hint of heat) born in the heartland from the finest Bar-B-Q traditions. Folks say it tastes like home. Thing is though, Head Country goes way beyond the bottle. You’ll find it in the devotion and passion of our fans, many of whom have chosen us for decades. Great flavor alone doesn’t explain it. But great times? Well, great times and Head Country just seem to go together. That’s the not-so-secret ingredient behind every Head Country product. So long as people enjoy it, we’ll proudly keep doing what we do best – bring families and friends together for great times and great Bar-B-Q.”
I hear you Head Country! My favorite moments of my life include barbecue moments with friends and family! And BBQ is not just for the summer. I love it all year round. For this particular picnic I ended up using some leftover chopped brisket and I brought along Head Country’s Original Sauce. It’s just a classic favorite. It’s a well-balanced blend of sweet, spice, and savory so you just cannot go wrong. And Head Country’s sauce ingredients contain no glutens, or allergens! They also make a Hot & Spicy, Hickory Smoke, Chipotle, and Apple Habanero. Lin loves the Hot & Spicy! And I actually just used the Chipotle in a BBQ Bloody Mary recipe. Find that recipe here. Head Country has a marinade too! It’s actually pictured here because I promised Jenna a bottle of it to take to her mom and dad. It’s perfect for enhancing beef, pork, poultry, wild game, and vegetables. Layer with their seasoning and sauces and you’ve got something truly special. I love using the Head Country Sweet & Spicy Seasoning on sweet potato fries!
Find out more about your new favorite BBQ brand here.
And now for your downtown edition of Instagrammable walls to get those pics!!
PICNIC LOCATION: HABIT- NON-PROFIT PUBLIC ART PROJECT WITH A MISSION TO ENHANCE OUR CITY AND INSPIRE CULTURAL GROWTH AT 860 EAST ADMIRAL BLVD.
These are my favorite walls in Tulsa and I know there are more beautiful murals out there! I encourage you to share your favorite walls and murals either in the comments or on Instagram using the hashtag: #TulsaWalls #TulsaMurals!
Next location: Dia de los Muertos at 307 E Mathew B. Brady Street
For the past twenty-five years, the Living Arts gallery downtown has kept Tulsa alive by celebrating the dead. The yearly Dia de los Muertos honors Tulsa’s strong Hispanic culture and their traditions with the holiday. In the midst of the music, food, and skeleton parades is an alleyway full of murals commemorating the event. The art stays up all year, but if you’re in town the first weekend of November, this festival is a can’t-miss event!
Next Location: The Boxyard- Habit Mural Festival, hosted by the creative minds at Clean Hands has some pretty cool large scale pieces too! Plus The Boxyard is a really fun place to eat, drink, and shop if you have never been! My fave ice cream place is there!! And just like BBQ, I am convinced that you can enjoy ice cream all year round too.
502 East 3rd Street
Next location is actually right across from The Boxyard. (918 Whiskey building at 512 E. Second St.) Here you will get a shot of the iconic Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys. “Take Me Back To Oklahoma”
Next Location: Tulsa Art Alley between Fifth and Sixth Streets and Boston Avenue and Main Street. This alley really makes me feel like I have transported somewhere in NYC and there are Instagrammable moments everywhere.
While you are there pop over to Chapman Green!! Artist Patrick Dougherty completed his first ever Oklahoma installation in downtown Tulsa in his first-ever Oklahoma installation. Combining his love of nature and his talent of carpentry, Dougherty crafts larger-than-life sculptures from sapling branches he harvests locally. Patrick Dougherty has constructed nearly 300 sculptures in locales all over the world, and has won numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. So it’s pretty exciting we have one of his pieces in Tulsa. Find Stickwork at Chapman Green located at 601 S Main Street. (I know it’s not a wall but it’s worth mentioning)
Another fave downtown Tulsa mural of mine is in the alley behind the Tulsa Club Hotel, and is by Jill Stanton. Thanks to Habit Mural Festival for bringing a whole lotta awesome new public art to Tulsa!
This was such a fun day just literally jumping in the car and exploring my city. Being a creative it's hard some days to keep pushing forward , to attempt things that are difficult but traveling inspires the heck out of me. So please travel!! Take a part of your own city you have never been in and explore ..try a new restaurant - eat alone - heck eat with a stranger - have a BBQ picnic——-just refuse to give in to complacent and staying still . Not wanting to move forward in life (business, relationships, health) and advance yourself is the most common and detrimental mistake any person can make in today’s world. For the most part, any happy individual has always seen more to what is in front of them. They have the vision and the awareness to not allow their selves to fall into the quicksand that is complacency.Now, by no means am I insisting you cannot live a typical, settled life and live it happily. A comfortable life, lived without straying from the norm is 100 percent achievable and has been since the dawn of time. However, what I am implying is that, no matter if you want normalcy or extraordinary abnormality in your career or personal life, you have strive for more than what is comfortable.
Can’t wait to see how you create your special fall memories with Head Country too!! Tag your memories using #HeadCountryForFall.
Thanks for the killer photos Jenna! Love being creative with you!!!