JANESVILLE Of the dozens of public murals that have been painted over the last seven years in Janesville, most have been commissioned in and around the citys downtown.
That makes a corrugated metal building nestled between youth baseball fields on the citys east edge seem like an unlikely canvas for one of the citys newest works.
But the building a quonset hut-style storage facility for the Youth Sports Complex off Wuthering Hills Drive is now painted Milwaukee Brewers blue, with a new mural on its west wall that when finished will depict a whimsical, rural scene: A pick-up baseball game at sunset, somewhere in Wisconsins Northwoods.
Madison-based artist Emily Balsley is painting the new mural as part of the Brewers City Connect project, but the creation coincides with the Janesville Area Convention & Visitors Bureaus annual Art Infusion festival, a celebration of public art. The event rolled out over the weekend.
Art Infusion has now fostered more than 30 murals in Janesville most large in scale, and many occupying the sides of buildings along the citys downtown riverfront.
Now, the infusion has started to spread to different area in the city, far beyond the downtown. Along with work at the ball diamonds, another artist, Chicago muralist and illustrator is painting a mural on the wall in the corridor that connects the Uptown Janesville mall with the Woodmans Sports & Convention Center.
Lukes work is designed like a stylized, illustrated map of Janesville thats embedded with oodles of visual easter eggs images of Bessie the Cow, the downtown riverfronts pedestrian bridge, and more that Janesville residents will recognize.
Another artist, Madison , is creating a new downtown mural along the North Main Street riverfront. Zarembas using the river-facing side of the Great Harvest Bakery Caf矇 as a canvas.
Over the weekend, Balsley was hard at work, harnessed high above ground on the platform a construction boom, armed with spray paint beneath a blue umbrella that shaded her from the sun that beat down on her and new, blue artwork.
The artist talked about the new mural and its unlikely canvas, a quonset hut that would turn any painted fresco, regardless of its subject, into an arched semicircle.
The new mural goes along with the Brewers new Wisco theme.
Wisco is kind of like the idea of getting out of the city and into the far reaches of the state and bringing baseball all the way out there, Balsley said. In my head, the story Im envisioning is Im hiking through the woods, I wander off the trail, and I stumble into this clearing, and theres a pickup baseball game happening.
Thats exactly what the playful mural shows. Set against a sunset over a lake shoreline bound by trees, is the familiar spread of a baseball diamond. And not just any diamond. 詁硃梭莽梭梗聆s mural shows players of the human variety mingled with smaller players; it turns out theyre woodlans animals in uniform.
Theres a beaver on the infield, a fox in the outfield, and spectators cheering on the ball players as they paddle past in a canoe and stoke a campfire. On the lower corner of the mural a bicyclist pedals along with a flag rising from the back of the bike that bears the logo Wisco.
Balsley, a childrens book illustrator and muralist, said she talked with Janesvilles tourism bureau about the new mural and her general marching orders working within the Brewers City Connect project.
She said the tourism bureau picked the murals location.
They said, Lets do this out at the sports center, because that is the audience you want. Theyre going to totally appreciate the baseball theme, Balsley said.
Balsley was wearing a Brewers ball cap that matched well with the blue paint spatters on her shorts and shirt.
For her, the biggest challenge was her canvas. Its the first time shes painted a corrugated metal building with a mural. She said the uniform waviness of the quonset huts metal siding made her think long and hard about perspective.
From some angles, the uneven surface makes the murals ball players and other characters appear to contract or stretch, an accordion effect that gives the murals scenes a slightly different look depending on viewers vantage point.
But from any direction, the mural shows off a fun, timeless scenes in a boundless, familiar blue thats likely to bring a smile to Brewers fans of any age.
Over the weekend, 詁硃梭莽梭梗聆s sketched out the mural in color and shape, but it remained unfinished; she was just starting the detail work. She figures her work will be headed for home plate by early this week.
The new mural ought to last many a baseball season at the Youth Sports Complex.
Ive been here when baseball tournaments are going, and it gets jam-packed. So there will always be people coming and going wholl view it, Balsley said. I hope that people get a kick out the scene and appreciate it.