EAST LANSING, Mich. — The City of East Lansing and East Lansing Arts Commission will be hosting a dedication ceremony for the new “Greetings from East Lansing” public art mural on Thursday, May 20 at 2 p.m. at the Roadhouse Pub, 122 N. Harrison Road.
East Lansing Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg will serve as the Master of Ceremonies and speakers will include East Lansing Mayor Aaron Stephens and the Greetings Tour artists Victor Ving and Lisa Beggs. There will also be a land acknowledgement by the Nokomis Cultural Heritage Center.
Following the program, there will be opportunities for photos and interviews with the speakers, including the artists.
About the Mural
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 have been in East Lansing working on the “Greetings from East Lansing” mural since Monday, May 10 and have been assisted by two local artists – Lansing-based artist Samskee and Detroit-based artist Zak Warmann. This is their first mural in Michigan.
The mural measures approximately 11 feet high by 51 feet wide and features a postcard-like design with large lettering, bright colors and imagery that is relevant to the local community. Each letter in “East Lansing” contains imagery of something recognizable in the City of East Lansing, including the Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, the Division Street Parking Garage, the Mary P. Sharp “Raising Harmony” sculpture and MSU’s Sparty. An unmistakable black squirrel is also perched on top of one of the letters.
Additionally, in recognition that the East Lansing-MSU 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 features 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.
Ving and Beggs have completed 50 murals in 24 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.
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.