While driving through Marysville you may have noticed some new artwork at the Pony Plaza. This new artwork is known as the Lifetile Murals, created by Boston, MA artist, Rufus Seder. These are interactive murals, meaning that when the tiles are viewed from a stationary position they appear as a fixed image. However, when the viewer moves from one side to another, the embedded images appear to move as you walk.
There is no other artwork of this kind in Kansas. Every Lifetile is hand-crafted from start to finish. Each mural measures 4' high and 10' long and consists of 90 individual glass tiles with images embedded in each tile. The Pony Rider mural was funded by private donations, including a mini-grant from the Kansas Arts Commission, a $1,000 grant from Walmart, a generous donation from the Marysville Sesquicentennial Commission and dozens of contributions from individual citizens and companies.
The Pony Express Mural is designed to show a Pony Express rider riding through the prairie, as if they are leaving Marysville heading to the next Station. The model for this mural was Dan Koch, Seneca. The artist traveled to Marysville to film sequences on videotape that were then made into single frame images to capture the intricate details of movement of the rider, horse and equipment. Filming of the rider took place at the farm of Ken and Arleta Martin. Background scenes of grass, hills and cloud formations were filmed north of Marysville. If you look close at the bottom left tile in the Pony mural you will find the signature of the artist.
The second mural is the Union Pacific train mural, funded by the Union Pacific Railroad. This mural shows an old steam locomotive transitioning into a modern diesel locomotive pulling coal cars. The new diesel locomotive, the old steam engine and its tender depicted in the mural are taken from models on display in the UPRR museum in Council Bluffs, IA. The coal cars that appear to move on this mural are from footage of actual coal cars moving down a track in Marysville that were taped, computerized, and then transfered to the 90 tiles.
Funding for a 3rd mural is underway, and will present a variety of images important to Marysville over the years, along with our famous Black Squirrels. This mural will be placed between the Pony Rider and the Train murals. The mural would consist of an alternating series of three pictures in four phases. The top and bottom bands of the mural will be black squirrels that look like they are running across the mural. Each successive phase of pictures would be viewed by taking steps left or right. Minor movements should not cause the scene to change, thus allowing the viewer to spend time looking at the finer points of each scene.
The budget for the mural is $31,845, good through Dec. 31, 2010 which includes the cost of installation. A single tile would be $354 dollars and could be split between family members such as brothers, sisters, parents, etc. We were very successful with our previous campaign of "Buy a Tile" that funded the Pony Mural and have decided to try a similar approach for the third and final mural. If you are interested in donating or buying a tile please contact Rick Shain at the City of Marysville.
