In Lansing, a new placemaking sign has been installed to greet motorists driving along Saginaw Highway.
Six-foot tall letters, decorated by local artists, spell out the word LANSING.
WKAR’s Scott Pohl takes us Inside The Arts with a stop at this week’s dedication ceremony.
Everyone has seen the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign, and you may have noticed that Detroit recently put up a placemaking sign of its own. Now, Lansing has one, too.
It’s along one of the city’s busiest intersections. Lansing is spelled out in big capital letters, and each of those seven letters bears a creative design from an artist.
Jasmyne Wells has painted the letter N with a mosaic of images, from the state capitol dome to a Capital Area Transportation Authority bus, to the Lansing Board of Water and Light’s stacks. It’s like you’re looking at these images through a chain link fence.
The project sprang from a $10,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, paired with an additional $30,000 from the Saginaw Avenue Corridor Improvement Authority.
Kahleea Washington is a community development specialist with the Lansing Economic Development Corporation. She was asked to create something Lansing was missing, “and after brainstorming, I thought Lansing was missing a vital sign,” she explains. “So, I found what I think is the perfect location for it along the Saginaw Street corridor, and highly trafficked area, and I knew that I wanted the sign to be city focused or community focused, so having those local artists be the people who designed every aspect of the sign.”
Artist Sara Pulver got the slimmest letter, but she was fine with decorating the letter I, especially once she saw how tall six feet really is. Pulver took a more abstract approach than the other artists. She’s a muralist and illustrator by trade, so hers uses bright colors and some simple lines that she adds “make it pop out a little bit.”
For the sign’s last letter, Marissa Tawney Thaler chose to represent the city’s REO Town area, especially the project to restore the Moores Park pool.
Teresa Dunn is another artist involved with the project. Last March, we told you about her large art display on the REO Town central substation called A Long Line of Women. For this project, her letter A depicts a woman of color. “It’s a former student of mine,” she explains. “Her name is Azya, and she is a fine example of strength and pride and an incredible person, and I thought she was the perfect person to represent on this letter.”
By now, you may have noticed that all the artists involved in the project are women. Executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, Meghan Martin, says that was a coincidence.“It just happened that the top scorers were seven women, and I think that’s absolutely fantastic,” Martin continues. “Any time that we can lift women artists up and develop this camaraderie amongst them so that they can maybe build on to other projects together, I think that’s fantastic.”
With the project now on public display, organizer Kahleea Washington was asked what might be next. “We’ll see,” she concludes, and I’m sure it will be along one of the city of Lansing’s commercial corridors, but something big is coming.”
The Lansing placemaking sign is at the northeast corner of Saginaw Highway and Grand Avenue. There’s a small parking lot across Grand if you want to get up close, but you’ll need to be careful crossing this busy intersection.
