photo by: City of Lawrence screenshot

A design of a mural that would be painted at the intersection of Seventh and Alabama Streets in Lawrence proposed by Dave Loewenstein. The design incorporates ideas from students from a local nursery school as well as Old West Lawrence neighbors.

A community mural at the street level could be coming to the Old West Lawrence neighborhood, thanks to the help of a prominent local artist.

The Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission approved a proposal earlier this month to paint a mural near the Lawrence Community Nursery School, 645 Alabama St., right in the intersection of Alabama Street and Seventh Street.

The mural would be painted by Dave Loewenstein, a local artist who has created a lot of public arts projects in Lawrence including the “The East Lawrence Waltz” at Hobbs Park.

Sam Zipper, the Secretary for the Lawrence Community Nursery School, told the Journal-World that Loewenstein approached the school about a year ago of the potential of creating a piece of community and neighborhood art. The school was excited about the prospect of having Loewenstein, who recently moved to Old West Lawrence, in creating a design.

Zipper said the vision for the project came from the idea of “intersection repair:” painting a portion or the entirety of an intersection to bring more life to the area.

“You take a boring, uninspiring patch of concrete and turn it into a community place that people are excited to see and walk past,” Zipper said.

photo by: Bremen Keasey

Lawrence Community Nursery School, 645 Alabama St., shown in May 2025.

The design for the project looks a little bit like a compass. The middle would feature an ornate box turtle, the state reptile of Kansas. The turtle would be surrounded by a border circle that would feature images based on youth and neighbor drawings during design workshops. The directional arrows that would represent the cardinal directions could feature other design details like flowers.

Zipper said getting the student input has been a fun part of the project. Loewenstein had asked the students at LCNS to go to the different corners of the intersection and talked about what they were hearing, feeling, seeing. From there, the students would come back in and translate those feelings into designs that could be incorporated into the final mural.

Loewenstein also held sessions with other community members across Old West Lawrence to add their input into the final design as well.

Zipper said the biggest concern with the project will be maintaining the mural. With it being on the street, it creates a tougher environment with everything from cars to snowplows passing over it.

Zipper said other street murals have been created in the past in Lawrence, but noted Loewenstein said he “learned over time” about the proper way to pretreat the area so it can endure much longer. That pretreatment includes sweeping and powerwashing the intersection. When it comes to painting the mural, the project will use professional grade acrylic paint made specifically for painting on asphalt. If all is done correctly, the mural will last three to five years at a time.

Zipper said if the project needs maintenance done on it before that time frame, the school is in a good position to keep the work from fading. Because the school is a cooperative preschool, Zipper said there is a model where the parents get involved in maintenance around the school. That can easily translate to helping keep up the mural.

“We see this as something we can integrate directly into those activities,” Zipper said.

The mural still needs to get approval from the city’s Municipal Services and Operations department for shutting down the street to traffic to paint the project as well as a final say-so from the City Commission. But Zipper hopes the painting can get done this summer for an official unveiling party at the start of the fall semester that can serve as a community event.