Great Wall Mural an 'expression of people's stories'
June 12, 2011By
Usually, art is kept indoors, under a thick panel of glass and is credited to one particular artist. The Great Mural Wall of Topeka is anything but usual.
Located on the west side of the Expocentre and near the intersection of S.W. 20th and Western, the project began in 2006. It is led by lead artists Ashley Laird, a graduate of Washburn University, and Dave Loewenstein, a nationally known artist from Lawrence.
"Sometimes art is considered a commodity to be bought and sold," Loewenstein said. "This project reminds us how important art is for the expression of people's stories, where they live and what they aspire to."
Laird and Loewenstein actively involve the people in the community to determine the subject of each Great Wall painting.
"It's their front yard, their backyard, they drive by it every day. The art is much more than paint on a wall," said assistant artist, Cicelia Ross-Gotta, about the embrace of the citizen's input. "Because it's not in a gallery, we have to approach it differently."
The Great Mural Wall of Topeka started as an effort by members of the Chesney Park Neighborhood Association to clean up their area of graffiti and give something beautiful back to the community.
“People's history envisioned” has become the overall goal for the program. Each painting is used to symbolize events, places or people that are important to Topekans, both past and future.
Already, the 900-foot wall has been adorned with six 60-foot long murals, about such topics as the environment, Brown vs. Board of Education, Central Park Neighborhood and others. When the wall is finished, it will have 15 sections of murals. The seventh installment's title is "Contagious Beauty and Local Flavor." The topic is to exemplify the sources of inspiration in Topeka for the townspeople that cause them to create their own art, in any way, shape or form.
Laird and Loewenstein invite Topeka residents to help prime the wall on June 18 beginning at 10 a.m. Participants need not bring any supplies.
Andrea Marshbank can be reached
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
2011 Mural Begins
New Mural Project at the Great Mural Wall
First Community Meeting
Saturday, May 28th
10 am
Blue Planet Cafe
110 SE 8th
Topeka, KS
In this, the seventh panel on the Great Wall, lead artists Ashley Laird and Dave Loewenstein will work with local artists, arts advocates and neighborhood residents on a sixty-foot mural that celebrates the heritage and continued vitality of Topeka’s creative community.
With looming cuts to arts spending in Kansas and across the nation, the theme of this mural is especially relevant. Through this project, we want to focus attention on the brilliant arts community taking shape here by highlighting Final Fridays, NOTO, reThink Topeka, and the countless other arts offerings sprouting up around town, while also looking back at the many individual artists and organizations that have nourished and inspired its development.
Timeline
May Research and Design
June Painting
Artists, art advocates and other interested Topekans who would like to help with this project should contact Ashley Laird at:
ashleyjanelaird@gmail.com
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Great Mural Wall in the news
Tom Benaka, president of the Chesney Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, tells a group about the newest mural on the Great Mural Wall of Topeka on Saturday afternoon during a ceremony at the site, near S.W. 20th and Western. Looking on are mural artists Ashley Laird, left, and K.T. Walsh.
By Phil Anderson
Shirley Anstaett doesn't live in the Chesney Park neighborhood, but that hasn't stopped her from taking pride in one of the community's crown jewels — the Great Mural Wall of Topeka. "It just really makes me proud," Anstaett said of the project. "It brings such beauty to the community." Anstaett was one of about 50 people who gathered Saturday afternoon for the unveiling of the latest mural of the project, an artwork with an endangered creatures theme.
The mural, which was sponsored by the Chords and Oil artist collective, was started in late June and completed a week ago on the south side of what had been a city water reservoir near S.W. 20th and Western. It shows a variety of animals that have existed through the years in the Topeka area, some by water, others on land and still others in air. Some of the animals on the new mural, like the woolly mammoth, haven't been seen for centuries. Others, like the red-bellied snake and whooping crane, continue to make their home along the muddy, frequently polluted waters of the nearby Shunganunga Creek.
The latest mural joins others with Topeka themes that already have been completed on the side of the former water reservoir, which has 900 feet of wall space. To date, more than 450 feet of the gigantic white wall space has been covered with colorful murals. The project was started in 2007 and was initiated by the Chesney Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, which wanted to instill pride in the Central Topeka community while at the same time beautifying the area and curtailing graffiti.
The project now has reached the halfway point. Space exists for about six more murals, which will be painted as funds become available.The goal is for the project to be completed by 2012. Artist K.T. Walsh, who has been involved in painting the murals, said ideas are solicited from the community before a group of artists comes up with a plan for a mural. Groups of volunteers then paint the murals, often sitting on scaffolding in blazing summertime heat. Walsh said some ideas for future murals are the city's Oakland neighborhood, "remarkable women" and the Latino tradition of Topeka.
Funding has come from a variety of sources, including the Security Benefit Group and Kansas Arts Commission, whose contributions were key to the completion of the most recent mural. "This year, they were very important for us," said Chesney Park Neighborhood Improvement Association president Tom Benaka. "We really appreciate them." The first murals were completed in the 1900 block of S.W. Western, just west across the street from the Kansas Expocentre. New ones are being painted around the corner on S.W. 20th, just west of S.W. Western. Future ones will wrap around the corner to the north in the 1900 block of S.W. Western, then along S.W. 19th just west of S.W. Western.
Previously finished murals depicted Topeka neighborhoods and community leaders. All of the murals will have Topeka themes, celebrating the city's history and culture. The project has been overseen by nationally known mural artist Dave Loewenstein, of Lawrence. When completed, the mural will be the largest of its kind in Kansas and second-largest in the United States, organizers said.
Zach Snethen, 30, accompanied by his wife, Erin, 29, and son Oliver, 10 months, took an up-close look at the newest mural on Saturday afternoon.
"To take a blank wall like this and put art on it that represents the community is pretty amazing," he said. "You can drive by it, but it's really good to stop and study it, because they really do have aspects of the entire community on the wall."
Phil Anderson can be reached at (785) 295-1195 or phil.anderson@cjonline.com.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Mural Dedication
the Great Mural Wall's newest panel
Saturday, October 23rd
2 pm
20th & Western
Topeka, Kansas
Threatend and Endangered
