Daughter Number Three: Murals on Lake Street

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Murals on Lake Street

I think I've mentioned murals here in the past (ha!). Lake Street in Minneapolis is another Twin Cities place to look for them, and the Lake Street Council, in collaboration with a number of funders, has just worked to support creation of 25 new murals this summer and fall.

I went to see some of them on Saturday. It was cold and had just been raining, so it wasn't the best weather for outside wandering, and the map they handed out was not too helpful in locating some of them, but it was worth the trip.

You can find a map of most of the existing and new murals on this page if you want to check them out yourself. It's better than the paper version they had on Saturday.

The very newest mural, which artist Daniela Bianchini told me she and Pablo Kalaka had just finished the day before, is on both sides under the giant Hiawatha Avenue overpass. It's not even on the map yet. I don't know if it has a title.

The south side looks like this in totality:

With these close ups in three sections from left to right:

Daniela makes mosaics, including mirror pieces, which are adhered to the mural. She designs the more realistic-looking painted parts, and Pablo designs the more graphic/illustrational parts.

For the north side, I only have close ups:

They painted on the site for six weeks, 12 hours a day, Daniela said, and started working on it in studio in February. (The mosaics are done ahead of time, as well as the designs and planning.)

West of Hiawatha, generally near or west of Bloomington, here are a few of the many murals:

Lupita, one of the new murals, by Argentinian artist Mariela Ajras.

Procesión by Pablo Kalaka, 2023. You can see the stylistic connection to his work in the new mural under the Hiawatha overpass, shown above. This the south side of the building; the mural continues on the east and west sides of the building (and for all I know, the north side, too — I didn't check!).