GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Grateful Dead boutique in Grand Rapids called Shakedown Street has a brand new, interactive mural on it for ArtPrize 2024.
The mural, created by artist and member of the Shakedown Street team Erica Kuhl, took about 1,500 hours to complete.
Kuhl has lived in Grand Rapids since she was a teenager and said she hoped to make the mural an homage to her home, as well as a way to educate the community about her city.
"I love this city very, very, very much. I consider it my home," Kuhl said. "I have put in this mural 70 to 75 buildings that are buildings in Grand Rapids, along with about 50 people that are residents and people that shop at our store."
Kuhl's mural wasn't just created for looks.
Near each painted building or person, you'll find a small colorful heart. Underneath that heart, Kuhl found a way to embed a near field communication (NFC) tag.
These tags are small, programmable stickers that act similarly to a QR code.
However, while a QR code functions like a two-dimensional barcode, NFC tags use radio-frequency technology to send data to your phone.
To activate the NFC tag, open your phone to its home screen. Then place your phone parallel to the wall, lining up the camera with the heart.
Don't open your phone's camera. It might take more than one try, but your phone should then have an alert appear on your home screen saying it has discovered an NFC tag.
When you click the notification, it will pull up the building or person's website, Facebook page or Instagram page.
This way, viewers can learn the stories behind the places and faces featured in the mural.
"It's a very interactive mural," Kuhl said. "...That heart lines up with the near field communication tag underneath it, sending out a 13 megahertz radio signal that your phone recognizes and then goes to a website."
Kuhl took the time to learn the history of the buildings she included in the mural and said it was important to her that visitors could as well.
"I think I would have lost my voice if I stood out here and talked to everybody about every single building and I got quite an education on those buildings and what they are in this city," Kuhl said. "So hooking them up to a little bit of the history of the places and the monuments and memorials and such that are represented in this building in this mural was very important to me."
A very special part of the mural to the 13 ON YOUR SIDE team was Kuhl's choice to include the 13 Weatherball in the hands of a bear using it as a lollipop.
Kuhl said she included 13 ON YOUR SIDE in her design because two years ago we did a story on Kuhl's "Golden Rod Girls" from ArtPrize 2022.
"No one else took up our story, no one else talked to us, no one else was interested in us," Kuhl said. "So that's kind of a nod to your news team and how much I really appreciate them."
Kuhl said above all, she hopes people who come to see the mural will stay for a visit in Shakedown Street.
"That is the main theme of the mural, is our beautiful, lovely store that I want everyone to visit," Kuhl said. "The people that I put on the mural as in the credits, are people that are family and people that are important to the store, and people have assisted without whose help and love this mural would not exist at all. So they are very dear to me. I've known them over 30 years."
Even when ArtPrize comes and goes, Kuhl said the mural will remain.
