Lansing-Visitors to downtown Lansing have five days left to see a series of lifelike sculptures that have decorated Washington Square and Michigan Avenue streets since June.
The second annual "Sculpture in the Streets" exhibit, sponsored by Principal Shopping District, features twenty bronze sculptures crafted by artist J. Seward Johnson Jr.
"This was a great opportunity for people to come to the downtown area," said Matt Weingarden, marketing manager for Principal Shopping District. "They could walk through, shop and see what's down here and enjoy what they were looking at."
The program was designed to attract new visitors to tour the streets and so far, Weingarden said, it's been successful.
All of the sculptures depict ordinary people in everyday situations, including a mother and child reading a book, two girls sharing an ice cream cone and a man holding a Coke while resting on a lawn mower.
"There's different kinds and they're very cool," said Mike Mbah, a student at Thomas M. Cooley Law School. "It adds to the uniqueness of the downtown area."
The life-size sculptures are made from bronze, adorned in various colors and fully dressed.
Johnson, the exhibits' 68-year-old creator, was a painter for most of his life but now has more than 200 of his bronze figures featured in private collections in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.
One statue on the corner of Washington Square and Michigan Avenue called "Coming Home" features a soldier hugging a little girl with an American flag.
"I thought they were real when I first saw them," Dearborn resident Mohamed Fouani said, gesturing to the statue. "They hug, it's a human hug. They seem very lifelike."
Private donations are used to pay for the art. Any additional funds are used for downtown revitalization such as the Lansing Incentive Program, a company which works to recruit new businesses to the Principal Shopping District.
"It's been wonderful to see the Sculpture in the Streets program grow over the last two years," said Leanne Stites, Principal Shopping District's executive director. "As the program has grown, so has the community's desire to be involved and next year will feature a dynamic, new exhibit that will see innovative kinds of community involvement."
