“I never set out to be a stencil graffiti artist,” he said. “It just kind of happened by accident.” Now, the El Paso painter who started out designing T-shirts for troops is so prolific in the Live Music Capital that his self-described Tex-Mex-Sexy style has become almost as iconic as the concert venues, restaurants and record stores that serve as Archuleta’s canvas. “He’s one of those guys that’s just simple, but I think he’s a genius,” said Nilda de la Llata, who displays many of Archuleta’s pieces at her El Sol Y La Luna restaurant, an institution on Austin’s famed South Congress Avenue. Bold hues and vivid images have always fueled Archuleta’s imagination, and he said the border culture he grew up with provided plenty of fodder.   Movies, music, comic books and candy wrappers, he said, caught his attention as a child. He loves Mexican singer and actor Vicente Fernandez.   “If Burt Reynolds could sing, that would be him,” Archuleta said. One of Archuleta’s earliest memories is of the flashing neon lights at the old Fiesta Drive-in Theater on Mesa Street. He was about 3, and his father was caretaker there.   “It had a Mexican lady and two little Mexican characters playing instruments, and they would move, the neon would move,” he said. “Now that made a huge impression on me as a kid.”    He doesn’t remember the movies he saw there, but Archuleta said he still dreams about movie theaters and loves neon lights. By the age of 8, Archuleta said he knew he wanted to be an artist. His first real art job after graduating from Bel Air High School in 1985 was designing silkscreen prints for T-shirt shops in El Paso near Fort Bliss. It was at the end of the Cold War era, and troops were looking to publicly display their anti-communist sentiments.   “Mascots eating communists, that was the name of the game back then,” he said. “Wolverines eating Russian soldiers, monsters eating Russian solders, warriors tearing Russian soldiers apart, nonstop things like that.” In 1995, Archuleta moved to Guadalajara and painted portraits from a booth in an artisans market.   “I was just smitten by the town,” he said, “É the friendliness of the people, the architecture and especially the women, no doubt about it.” After traveling in Mexico and working for a spell in the tiny surfing town of Sayulita, Nayarit, Archuleta landed in Las Vegas and designed displays for Tower Records.   “I know more about rock history than I do about art history,” he said. “I’m a big music fan.” He came to Austin in 2001 and started working at the Tower Records store across from the University of Texas at Austin.   When the store got orders to close about a year later, Archuleta got three months notice, and didn’t have much to do. To kill time, he started making huge stencils to decorate the columns on the storefront with musical figures such as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. “The public response was just so great,” he said.   Requests for his work started flowing in, and now Archuleta’s graffiti art is all over town: A cowgirl shooting a collage of music notes from a pistol on the front of the Hole in the Wall, a longtime music venue and bar near the UT Austin campus; Louis Armstrong, all big eyes and puffy cheeks, blowing on a trumpet on Cheapo Discs, a classic used CD store; Las cucarachas painted on velvet inside the Jackalope Bar on Sixth Street; and Virgens de Guadalupe in the backyard of friends in the eastside barrio. El Sol Y La Luna owner de la Llata started collecting Archuleta’s work. She keeps some pieces for herself and sells others at the restaurant.   One she said she would never part with is a portrait Archuleta painted of de la Llata embracing legendary Austin musician Toni Price.   “It’s almost like real,” she said. “It looks like, almost like, you can touch our skin.” Archuleta’s unique style that blends Tex-Mex, pop culture and rock ‘n’ roll with vivid imagery is a perfect fit for Austin, said David Brown, founder of Texas Music Matters, a cultural journalism project at KUT radio. “As you’re experiencing Austin, it’s what’s there in the corner of your eye as you take part in this very street-oriented culture,” Brown said. “ÉThis is, in a way, the visual soundtrack.” The El Pasoan’s artwork, Brown said, is likely to become a major force in Austin’s long history of street art.   But Archuleta doesn’t seem to know that yet.   “He’s like, ‘Ah, whatever,’ ” said Michelle Valles, who grew up with Archuleta in El Paso and is now a TV news anchor at the NBC affiliate in Austin. His name and work may be rising in fame, but Archuleta, her brother’s annoying friend who used to steal her cereal and snacks and lay around daydreaming on the floor, is the same kid from the neighborhood.   “He’s so unassuming,” Valles said. On a bright, hot Monday afternoon, Archuleta wiped his brow with a paint-spattered hand. He put away a can of red spray paint he used to put several pairs of puckered lips on the front windows of the building where his “Kiss this City” exhibit is on display.   “I’m too old to be a graffiti artist,” he said, admitting he’s 41.   He calls his work public service.   David Brown calls it what Austin looks like. Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com;512-479-6606.