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Mobile mural gives glimpse into bigger mural hopes
Main Street Mt. Pleasant will set up a new mobile mural for photos at events just in time for RAGBRAI
MT. PLEASANT — Thanks to some creative thinking between local artist Oil Painter Annie and Main Street Mt. Pleasant, a new photo opportunity will pop up at future events in the Mt. Pleasant area.
With RAGBRAI riders coming into Mt. Pleasant later this month, Main Street Mt. Pleasant Executive Director Lisa Oetken said she got together with Annie Guldberg, also known as Oil Painter Annie, to discuss potential “photo ops” around town. Together the two came up with the idea to create a mobile mural.
“It’s a good photo op and it will make a really nice graphic backdrop to pictures,” Guldberg said.
This mobile mural measures 12 feet by 8 feet featuring a postcard-type design originally intended for the West Gateway mural. Guldberg and her graphic designer husband designed the panels with bold letters spelling out “Mount Pleasant” on top of a simple Iowan sunset over a field. Each letter contains sights from around the Mt. Pleasant area and nods to the town’s history.
According to Guldberg many of these suggestions for the letters came from Oetken. One of her favorite images includes the Temple Theater suggested by Oetken.
“I worked there as a teenager and that’s how I remember the Temple Theater,” Guldberg said.
This idea did not come completely from scratch. Last year Main Street Mt. Pleasant petitioned the Mt. Pleasant City Council to amend the city code pertaining to signs and billboards to allow for hand-painted wall signs or murals. Main Street successfully saw the amendment implemented and since then murals have popped up on the Taft-Wiley Inc. building and Brown’s Shoe Fit.
“We’re excited to have murals for people to talk about and take pictures with to remember the time they spend in Mt. Pleasant,” Oetken said.
Main Street also hoped to add a large mural to the side of the building at the West Gateway into Mt. Pleasant following this amendment. While they did receive memorial funds toward the mural, Main Street found the project was still $10,000 shy of the total cost to make it a reality, and thus the mini-mobile mural idea came to be. Guldberg took the idea and scaled it down for this smaller option.
According to Oetken those interested in helping Main Street make the larger mural a reality can do so by donating to Main Street Mt. Pleasant in person at the office, through the mail, or calling Oetken for other options including credit card and Venmo donations.
As Main Street Mt. Pleasant continues to raise funds for the full-size mural in Mt. Pleasant, the mobile mural will make show off the design in Central Park during the RAGBRAI celebrations and at various events like Music on Main and Old Threshers Reunion. According to Main Street member Patricia Morely, hopefully a QR code will accompany the mobile mural to make donating easy.
“We are definitely going to get more use out of it than just RAGBRAI,” Oetken said.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com
