EAST LANSING, Mich. — The south-facing wall at the Roadhouse Pub, 122 N. Harrison Road, will soon be home to a new “Greetings from East Lansing” public art mural created by Greetings Tour traveling muralist Victor Ving and photographer Lisa Beggs.
This exciting new mural project was commissioned by the East Lansing Arts Commission utilizing $27,700 from the Percent for Art program’s Public Art Fund and the mural location was made possible by a temporary easement agreement between the City of East Lansing and Harrison Village LLC, the owners of the Roadhouse Pub.
The Greetings Tour artist duo is expected to be in East Lansing painting the “Greetings from East Lansing” public art mural from May 10-17, 2021 (dates are weather dependent). The mural will measure approximately 11 feet high by 51 feet wide and will feature a postcard-like design with large lettering, bright colors and imagery that is relevant to the local community. Each letter in “East Lansing” will contain imagery of something recognizable in the East Lansing community, including the Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, the Division Street Parking Garage, the Mary P. Sharp “Raising Harmony” sculpture, Sparty and the unmistakable squirrel at the top. Additionally, in recognition that the East Lansing-Michigan State University community occupies the ancestral, traditional and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples, one section of the mural will feature the Anishinaabe people. To select the imagery for the mural, the artists worked with the East Lansing Arts Commission and other community stakeholders, including MSU and the Nokomis Cultural Heritage Center in Okemos.
Ving and Beggs have completed more than 45 murals in 21 states, with a mission to paint in all 50 states across America. They have been traveling out of their RV since 2015 and lived full time on the road for five years before choosing southern California as their home base. Community members and members of the media can find additional information about the artists and their murals at https://www.greetingstour.com/.
“We are excited to welcome the Greetings Tour artists to our community and are thrilled to join a growing number of communities across the country that have commissioned one of their vibrant, postcard-style murals,” said East Lansing Art Festival & Arts Initiative Coordinator Heather Majano.
A sketch of the "Greetings from East Lansing" mural can be viewed here, courtesy of the Greetings Tour. This sketch is meant to be a blueprint of the final piece and not a complete rendering on a smaller scale.
The City of East Lansing’s Percent for Art ordinance requires that one percent of the budget (up to $25,000) for new development projects be used to fund public art in the community. Developers can choose to propose and commission a public art piece on the site of their development, donate public art to the City or contribute funds to the City’s Public Art Fund. The City also contributes one percent of its capital improvement budget to the Public Art Fund each year.