The downtown area of Manitowoc is now being watched over by one of the most historic members of the community.
A group of three local artists have put their stamp on the city with the beautiful colorful painting of Ruth West on a wall at the corner of North 8th Street and Maritime Drive.
We spoke with Erin LaBonte, one of the artists about how the project came to be. “I’m part of the public arts committee for the Rahr-West Art Museum,” she explained. “The committee had been eye-balling that wall for a long time. It’s definitely a great spot for some public art. Nick [Mueller] had finally gotten the go ahead from the building owner, so early this year he brought it to the committee.”
LaBonte, who used to teach art at the now closed Holy Family College, worked on the project with fellow artists, David Carpenter and Becca Jabs, who each brought forth their own ideas. However they went with the design brought forth by LaBonte and her husband, Don Krumpos.
As a group they decided to honor the late Ruth West. LaBonte said, “In 2015, David and I had been working together on a different mural project that was going to be going underneath the Dewey Street Bridge, and we were going to do portraits of the Wests…The project didn’t go through, and I’ve had it in my head for a long time that I specifically wanted to pay tribute to Ruth, because of all that she did for art in the Manitowoc Community.”
The design they agreed on came from both a practical and aesthetic need. Practical because the roughness of the wall would have made it rather difficult to blend colors, so they went with some more flat colors. Aesthetically, because, as LaBonte put it, “It’s grey and dreary most of the year in Manitowoc, so we though that would be nice on that corner,” referring to the color palette.
LaBonte told SeehaferNews.com that they finished the project last Thursday, and that Ruth is now looking over the ever evolving downtown area with a smiling face.
