After a week of cold, snowy weather, a new mural provided a pop of color in the Milton E. Ford LGBT Center on January 24. The mural, designed by Rhiannan Sibbald, ‘18, depicts the GVSU LGBTQ+ community through a wall of colorful flowers and characters.
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Image credit - Kendra Stanley-Mills
After a week of cold, snowy weather, a new mural provided a pop of color in the Milton E. Ford LGBT Center on January 24. The mural, designed by Rhiannan Sibbald, ‘18, depicts the GVSU LGBTQ+ community through a wall of colorful flowers and characters.
“ The LGBTQ+ community is so vibrant, literally and figuratively. As a proud ally, I wanted to create a piece that reflected that vibrancy, radiating joy, peace and freedom,” said Sibbald, who was contacted this summer by the LGBT Center to design a piece of art for the space.
Sibbald is a full-time illustrator and muralist based in Grand Rapids, and has painted murals for schools, libraries and other places in the city.
The mural was a collaboration between Sibbald and the LGBT Center staff and students. Staff collected photos of current Grand Valley students, and their likenesses inspired the design of many of the characters featured. Milton E. Ford, the LGBT Center’s founder, is also depicted on the left side of the mural in yellow.
“I know he was a warm and compassionate person, beloved by many,” said Sibbald. “I wanted to create an homage to him in the design, surrounded by the people he had helped create a better world for.”
Celia McClure Sikkema is one of the students whose photo was used for inspiration. They work at the LGBT Center as a front desk worker and facilitator for the General Queer Alliance and are a current Grand Valley senior who will graduate in the spring.
“I'm not one to want to see my face on a wall,” McClure Sikkema said, “but I’ve worked here for three years and feel very close to the Center, and sad to leave it.”
As a student employee, they had the chance to vote on the final mural design. Two options had been drawn up, and staff members were invited to give their input on which they preferred. “This one I think was pretty much a landslide,” said McClure Sikkema.
Because Sibbald was not able to paint directly on the wall in the LGBT Center, she instead designed the whole thing digitally and had it printed on sections of vinyl.
“I design everything digitally on my iPad and Photoshop, even my hand-painted murals. The only difference was in the final step, where I had to scale the art to 100% size and redraw it for print purposes,” said Sibbald.
After the installation was complete, the LGBT Center opened its doors to unveil the mural to the community.
“It just feels very bright and happy in a time where like, the weather is awful and the week has been really hard,” said McClure Sikkema. “The Center is such a place of solace for a lot of people. I think this is a good way to visually represent the community, because we’re all amalgamations of the people that influence us, and this is a very colorful way of showing that.”
Said Sibbald: “My hope is that this mural will uplift and comfort folks on the hard days and promote celebration on the good days. I have a trans sibling and many trans, gay and queer-identifying friends. Knowing I had a hand in transforming this space for a community I love so dearly is an overwhelming privilege.”
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