Laramie Mural Project Fundraiser to Add New Murals Downtown

June 21, 2013
Mural with prairie dogs
Artist Jeff Hubbell’s “Prairie Dog Town” is among murals planned for Laramie’s downtown district. (Jeff Hubbell)

The Laramie Mural Project fundraising campaign is under way online at Kickstarter, with a goal of adding seven new murals to downtown Laramie by the end of next summer.

The Laramie Mural Project is a collaboration among local artists, downtown building owners, Laramie Main Street Alliance and the University of Wyoming Art Museum.

The group needs to raise $15,000 by July 21, in an “all or nothing” approach to continue the project. Those interested in donating can visit www.kickstarter.com and type “Laramie Mural Project.” Donors can choose amounts ranging from $10 to $5,000.

The Kickstarter campaign will help the Laramie community and project supporters to transform downtown Laramie with murals that reflect the area’s social and cultural assets. Kickstarter is an online tool to help raise funds for unique individual or community projects. Funds donated are received only if the total goal is met.

This summer’s first murals include “Crossing Sherman Hill” by Travis Ivey, which will be located at the Modern Printing building on the south corner of Kearney and Third streets.

"The mural, ‘Crossing Sherman Hill,’ represents an inspired panoramic landscape of the Laramie Range as it may have looked during the Big Boy steam engine era,” Ivey says. “Rather than incorporating an actual route over Sherman Hill, this piece is interpretive of the entire area between Cheyenne and Laramie, complete with the sweeping plains and rocky outcroppings, the Ames Monument and Dale Creek trestle."

Meghan Meier will continue her existing mural “Grainery Grove II” at The Big Dipper, formerly the Whole Earth Grainery, at 111 Ivinson Street. She will extend the mural of fanciful aspen trees that was completed in 2012 along the building’s north wall.

A third mural, “Prairie Dog Town,” by Jeff Hubbell, will span three downtown businesses -- The Curiosity Shoppe, Atmosphere Mountain Works and The Herb House, all on Second Street. The mural will be on the west or alley walls of the buildings and will feature a windy winter scene with large-scale prairie dogs and abstract patterns.

Planning is under way for additional murals by Dan Toro and Talal Cockar.

The Guthrie Family Foundation, Laramie Beautification Committee, Wyoming Arts Council and the City of Laramie have funded past murals.

To learn more about the murals, artists and the Laramie Mural Project, and to help the community art project continue, visit www.laramiemuralproject.org.

 

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