PUBLIC ART
Large-scale work painted around Grand Rapids. Right now that's one court on the north side, with more walls on the way.
Rosas
Briggs Park · Creston, Grand Rapids · 2025 · Commissioned by Lions & Rabbits
"A thank you letter to those who came before me, the ones who made sacrifices for me to be here today."
I grew up partly on this side of town. Around 2014 I spent a lot of afternoons at Briggs Park, hanging out with friends a block from my high school. Back then it was Creston. Now it's City. So this one landed at a place I already knew by heart.
In August 2025, Lions & Rabbits reached out. I'd worked with them before on art and photo projects, and Hannah Berry asked if I'd take on a basketball court. I said yes before I really knew what I was agreeing to. Everything I'd painted up to then was vertical: building walls, installations. I'd never touched a court. It was the coolest thing anyone had asked me to make.
I had no plan, so I built one that night. Too wired to sleep, I opened Procreate, looked up the dimensions of an outdoor court, and turned that into a canvas on my iPad. The idea was simple: grid the whole thing out digitally, then chalk the same grid onto the real court and transfer the design square by square, one to one.
I wanted something geometric. Clean enough to move over accurately, interesting enough to hold your eye. I landed on a rose pattern and named it Rosas, roses in Spanish. It's a nod to my heritage and a thank-you to Grand Rapids, the city that took my family in when we immigrated. For color I went with the Mexican flag. The green, white, and red carry you from one baseline to the other and back, end to end.
It's a standard outdoor court, roughly 84 by 50 feet, and I didn't paint it alone. Real thanks to the friends who showed up to help however they could, and to Lions & Rabbits: Hannah Berry, who made the call, and the whole team who pulled it together.
Commissioned by Lions & Rabbits Center for the Arts — Grand Rapids, MI. Painted with help from friends who showed up.
FOX 17: "Fighting the fight the way you can" — Mexican immigrant paints 'Rosas' mural in Grand Rapids park, by Sam Landstra
