New Downtown mural unveiled near Discovery Center

By Chris Fortune

A new mural representing home and family is gracing a Downtown building.

Main Street St. Joseph, a Downtown strategic action group, announced a collaboration with Mural Mosaic’s Global Roots Project to unveil the new mural in the alleyway next to 516 Felix St. Wednesday evening.

Hundreds of artists from America painted tiles that were brought together to form a larger picture of a tree and its roots.

“There’s a scientific kind of thing where roots kind of are now communicating to each other through a system of (fungi), which is called the mycorrhizal system,” designer Lewis Lavoie said. “When I heard about that, I thought that would be a great metaphor for art and trying to bring people together to do art.”

An artist from Omaha, Nebraska came to the unveiling after learning about the opportunity to participate through a post on social media.

“I thought it was such a neat idea to be able to put small pieces together to make a big work of art,” Jessica Janovich said. “This is like a permanent piece of that here in this alley, and it’s kind of cool.”

Those who painted tiles had an idea of what the final picture would look like at the unveiling.

“They have an interactive thing online where as they put it in pieces, you can see how it keeps developing as they add more (tiles),” Janovich said.

Many artists who painted tiles attended the unveiling and pointed their pieces out to family and friends. The new mural will greet visitors as they walk east on Felix Street toward the inspireU Children’s Discovery Center when it opens in December.

“To be able to bring kids down and talk about some of the meanings behind the art and how some of it was created will be great,” Lavoie said.