Work on latest building mural in downtown La Crosse underway

Helping Hands mural on Main Street parking ramp.

This whole wall mural thing is starting to catch on in La Crosse. 

A few months after Landon Sheely painted his “Helping Hands” mural on the side of the Main Street parking ramp downtown, some business owners are moving toward painting their own buildings.

The latest is a mural for the entire north face of the Mid-West Family Broadcasting building on 2nd and State downtown with work on that project starting this week.

It’s a good trend, says chair of the city’s arts board, Doug Weidenbach.

“We started it through city funded arts board, and now private citizens are also following through with the exact same thing,” Weidenbach said. “So, I think what we’ve done is going to create this movement to beautify the city, and I think that’s an excellent thing.”

Weidenbach acknowledges the works aren’t going to be universally loved.

“They don’t maybe like the images, they can’t create upon the scenes, they don’t don’t know exactly how things are going,” Weidenbach said. “You’re always going to get that when you have art.”

The latest mural is a work by local artist Annie Morris, going up on the north side at Mid-West Family. The work is entirely funded by the company and will begin this week.

Earlier this fall, Ashton Hall painted a mural at Grounded Specialty Coffee on the corner of Third and Main.

A mural painted by Ashton Hall at Grounded Specialty Coffee in downtown La Crosse is now complete.