New wall in bloom

Maggie Kleinpeter has a long history with downtown Baton Rouge.

Though the artist/designer/photographer now calls Austin, Texas, home, she and most of her family grew up downtown.

“I’ve seen pictures of my grandfather and grandmother walking down Third Street as a young couple,” Kleinpeter says. “My grandmother grew up here. My great-grandfather lived here and raised his children here. My mother lived here as a little girl.”

When Kleinpeter received a call to be a part of the BR Walls project, which, among other things, beautifies the facades of downtown buildings with art, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Kleinpeter’s collage was installed in March on 460 Main St. in partnership with Lamar Advertising and BR Walls. Like much of Kleinpeter’s work, her downtown collage is inspired by nature. It’s a colorful, yet abstract piece giving the “feeling of dandelion seeds floating slowly through the air,” she says.

“I love being outside,” she says. “I love gardening. I take photos of flowers, bugs … I let all that go in and spit it back out as paintings.”

BR Walls co-curator Casey Phillips says the response to Kleinpeter’s mural has been electric. “People love that mural,” he says. “We’ve gotten a lot of response from folks going to the farmers market, and it’s all been positive.”

Up next for the ambitious project is a series of mobile installations converting storage pods into artistic spaces—that debuted at the Better Block BR event last month—as well as taking the arts project throughout the state.

“We are expanding the project on a state level,” Phillips says. “It will move into north and southwest Louisiana, and we’ll be launching the Louisiana Walls Project.”

Phillips also says more Baton Rouge walls will soon be beautified by artists such as David Humphreys and Vance Kelly.