(La Porte, IN) - This week a blank brick wall in downtown La Porte was tagged with spray paint. It wasn’t graffiti, but the beginnings of a massive work of art.

 

Hot Spot Café will soon be home to La Porte’s newest downtown mural, measuring approximately 113 feet long by 25 feet tall.

 

The artist is Cheri Lee Charlton, a renowned illustrator and muralist from Chicago. She recently completed the second largest mural in Chicago on the side of a five-story building. On Tuesday, she went to work on Hot Spot’s blank wall facing Clay Street. Taking a concept drawing, she created a series of spray-painted shapes known as a doodle grid. What looks like random markings will, with the artist’s touch, become an eye-popping mural. The finished product will feature a colorful aquatic scene with water lilies, a frog, dragonflies, and a butterfly.

 

“It’s really cool that we were able to get her,” café owner Charity Hlavsa said of Charlton. “The Lubeznik Center had contacts with her, and chose her specifically. They thought that she would be a good fit, and they were right. We’re beyond excited.”

 

The mural is one of two commissioned this year by the Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Health Foundation of La Porte, and the La Porte Urban Enterprise Association. The other mural is in the planning stages for the old downtown fire station.

 

Hlavsa says Charlton has been making regular trips to Kabelin’s Ace Hardware to replenish supplies as the work progresses, which should be complete in the next couple of weeks.