Come the spring of 2005, Gorham Street will be a little brighter. Mary Lang Sollinger, owner of the Lands’ End outlet store, 411 State St., has plans to create a 12-by-15-foot full-color mural on a portion of the 318 W. Gorham building she owns.
The Madison Plan Commission Committee unanimously passed the mural design Monday night after a previous unanimous vote pass by the Urban Design Committee.
Currently, the area to be decorated is a white wall facing Avol’s Bookstore and vacant of aesthetics.
After two years working with street artists and graffiti artists, Sollinger said she is set on a “bright and cheery” mural. The design will be a café scene that will not be modern in features, but more realistic, she added. Sollinger will pay in full for the mural.
She got the idea to have a café mural from a previous café that used to be across the street and also from a mural design she saw in Boston. The mural was on a building on Newbury Street in downtown Boston. Sollinger said Newbury Street is similar to Madison’s own State Street.
“All of a sudden it dawned on me, it was what I was thinking about,” Sollinger said.
The mural will also incorporate representations of people who have had an impact on the State Street and downtown area, she added.
“I think it will be an awesome addition to that part of the building and block,” Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said. “That block and side of the building [have] never been particularly aesthetically pleasing.”
Verveer said he is happy with Sollinger’s effort to spruce up her building because it will be a nice addition to the area in his district. He added the mural will be an example of public art, which arguably adds spice to the downtown scene.
Mikii Youngbauer, featured in Madison Magazine this month, is the artist hired to create the mural. Sollinger said Youngbauer understood her idea for a café scene and has undertaken the task to imitate realistic faces.
“Both of us went through websites in urban areas to look at murals,” Sollinger said.
Sollinger said she had a hard time finding the right artists because a lot of the work was too dark and the face representations were not realistic enough.
“I wanted something a little bit more positive and a little bit more light-hearted,” she said.
Students agreed a mural in the close area of State Street would be a nice addition to the atmosphere.
“I think adding a mural would be a nice contribution to the current renovation project on State and could bring a little life to the typical brick buildings,” Aaron McCann, UW sophomore, said.
Other students said the design might have utilized a different idea or picture instead of a café scene.
“I think a mural would be a good addition to the area, but it would be more relevant to Madison’s scenery if it involved something with the lakes,” Joseph Bothwell, UW junior, said.
The mural is scheduled to be installed this spring.
