An East Lansing Girl Scout troop worked with Michigan State University art and design fraternity Gamma Epsilon Tau to create this mural on the Charles Street parking garage. (Courtesy photo)

East Lansing Girl Scout Troop, MSU Art Fraternity Team up to Paint Mural

Members of an East Lansing Girl Scout troop collaborated with Michigan State University art and design fraternity Gamma Epsilon Tau to create a new mural on Charles Street. 

The mural shows abstract versions of East Lansing’s native plants and animals, including a duck, a bee and a butterfly. 

The idea for the mural came from an existing partnership between the city and Gamma Epsilon Tau, said Sara McGirr, who is a member of the city’s Arts Programming and Creative Placemaking team. 

“We were thinking of ways that [the fraternity] may want to be involved in continuing to make their mark,” McGirr said. “We were also interested in a multi-age collaboration.”

Girl Scouts helped paint native plants and animals for the mural. (Courtesy photo)

The process began with a meeting between the fraternity, the city and the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts went to different stations led by fraternity members where they were prompted to come up with ideas about East Lansing’s sea, sky and land. 

East Lansing Arts Programming and Creative Placemaking Specialist Wendy Sylvester-Rowan said she was impressed by the creativity the Girl Scouts showed at this first meeting. 

“It was as simple as the grass or the trees,” Sylvester-Rowan said. “There were a lot of imaginative creatures that were thrown in.”

The Girl Scouts came up with many of the ideas for the mural and the fraternity helped make those ideas into a design, explained incoming Gamma Epsilon Tau President Charlie Sailor. 

“A good chunk of it was truly drawn by the Girl Scouts,” Sailor said. “We were just taking their drawings and finding a way to make them cohesive.”

Although Gamma Epsilon Tau has worked with the city on other projects, Sailor said working with the Girl Scouts made this project particularly inspiring for the group. 

“This project involved a lot more groups of people and more communities within East Lansing,” Sailor said. “I think that made it a lot more meaningful, more inspiring and more creative for all of our members.”

Creating the mural was also a learning experience for members of the art and design fraternity.

“I had never used a doodle grid before to lay out their pieces and stuff onto a bigger scale and that was really interesting,” Sailor said. 

Members of Gamma Epsilon Tau meet with Girl Scouts to get their feedback on design ideas for a mural on the Charles Street parking garage. (Courtesy photo)

Once they had drafted the design, Gamma Epsilon Tau reunited with the Girl Scouts to get their approval. The scouts even got the opportunity to paint parts of the final product and sign the mural. 

“Most of the mural had been painted in but they left some space for the girls to each work [on] and they each got to paint a little portion of the mural,” said Sara Haller, who is a troop leader. 

The project introduced some of the Girl Scouts to a new hobby, said Amanda Dubey-Zerka, another troop leader.  

“I think some of them have never painted before,” Dubey-Zerka said. “They didn’t want to stop, they wanted to keep going.”

The mural, titled “Critter Corner,” features paintings of a bee, a duck and a strawberry cow among other animals. 

“It has such a childlike presence and sense of awe and connection to nature.” Dubey-Zerka said. “It brings that connection back into the city.”

Dubey-Zerka also said the project falls perfectly in line with the Girl Scouts’ mission.

“Part of the Girl Scout Law is to make the world a better place and I think that this is one of the ways that the girls can do that,” Dubey-Zerka said.