Lansing resident Keith Donley has high praise for the Shiawassee Street Mosaic Project, a collaborative creation artist Alexandra Leonard has championed.

"It fills me up inside," Donley said. "She's made something out of nothing." Daisy Mosaic Tile

Leonard won't take full credit for the art installation, which had more than 1,000 collaborators. But she is the impetus behind it.

With encouragement from fellow artist Bob Rose, Leonard applied for and received a $75,000 Lansing Arts Impact Grant to develop a permanent creative structure that enhances an area's appearance and kindles community involvement.

The 650-square-foot mosaic tile mural adorns the southeast wall of the Shiawassee Street Bridge near Rotary Park. It's composed of thousands of individual ceramic tiles that stretch the 80-foot length of the pedestrian pathway between the Lansing River Trail and the bridge's stairs to Shiawassee Street.

"Every tile tells a different story," Nagee Hakim said as he watched Leonard put the finishing touches on the mural on Thursday. "It really is beautiful." 

Over 1,000 people from across Greater Lansing helped Leonard make the tiles at socially distanced pop-up workshops during local festivals and community events over the past two-plus years. Once attendees were done with their creations, Leonard took them home to glaze and fire them in her garage studio kiln.

The original project was supposed to be finished in September 2020. COVID-19 changed that timeline.

"It's just an enormous puzzle to put together and my brain tends to work in a fairly chaotic way in many directions at once," she said. "It's emergent as the process evolves."

In September 2021, she began installing the mosaic pieces on the bridge and people began to notice.

"The best part of this has been the connections we've made with the public," Rose said. "People from every walk of life stop by and chat."  

Leonard had this to say about a creative project's evolution.

"It's mine now because I'm the one putting the pieces all together," she said. "But once it's finished and goes to whomever it's going to - it's no longer mine. Whatever meaning I had in mind belongs to the viewer now."

Blue Mosaic Tile There will be a public unveiling of the ceramic tile mosaic at 9:30a.m. Oct. 3, followed by a discussion with the artist.