Greetings from Louisville Mural near Churchill Downs KY

Greetings from Louisville. We painted the official welcome to Louisville sign right across the street from the world-famous Churchill Downs. It’s one of the most iconic and well known venues of the state hosting the Kentucky Derby. However, the immediate surrounding neighborhood did not often get the funding and love it deserves. Local property owners John and Mary Kay Dixon (along with their bulldog Rocco) reached out to us with a goal to brighten up the neighborhood by adding a piece of public art for this specific community.

We arrived in Louisville on an unseasonably hot and humid October day. We hung out with locals around different neighborhoods that fall under the Ohio River and it felt like southern city with culture and hospitality. Louisville (properly pronounced Lulvul) has an Austin, TX vibe before the traffic and bachelorette parties. It’s a great place where the local coffee shops and family owned delis are more popular than Starbucks. We loved the local pride and wanted to make sure it showed in our mural design.

Lisa Beggs Photographs Louisville Skyline

Louisville Mural Artist Paints Wall - Street Art

We got to traveling around town and Lisa took photos for references of what we would paint inside the letters. The wall that we were painting was rather long, but we wanted to try to keep the lettering within a postcard format. Therefore, we extended the background imagery out but kept the focus of the lettering centered on the wall. It was a similar method to what we did back on the Greetings from Seattle wall back in 2016. John did a lot of prep work for us before we arrived. This included cutting the weeds, priming the wall and even supplying 2 scissor lifts.

Louisville Postcard Mural in Progress by Victor Ving

After celebrating Victor’s birthday at Porcini (it was delicious), we got back to work on the mural. John and Mary Kay allowed us to conveniently park the RV on their property where we painted. Now, a mural wouldn’t be complete without its first day challenges, would it? The ground where we needed to use the lifts wasn’t perfectly level, so John being a DIY problem solver built us custom ramps on location. We laid out the sketch and began color blocking the background. With the 90 degree heat and 90% humidity, we checked ourselves into hotels at night. It was too unbearable to sleep in the RV in the Southern heat. Later in the week, we met Jennifer who graciously donated her historic AirBnB to us for three nights. We really appreciated this and it helped re-energize us as we relaxed in air conditioning with her two cats.

Staying true to our collaborative efforts with the community, we invited Louisville/Cincinnati based artist collective Often Seen Rarely Spoken to come help paint the wall art. Victor’s mural agency worked with OSRS in the past, but we were so excited to finally meet up with them in person! They were the ones who connected us to all good things in Louisville. The completion of this mural would not have been the same without the four of them and their insight into the community.

Montana Cans White Spray Paint - Louisville Mural

Welcome to Louisville Postcard Mural WIP

Local Louisville Mural Artist Collaboration

We were contacted by a production team at Discovery/Trvl Channel to do a feature on the Greetings Tour project. We invited them down to film during this mural. Thanks again to OSRS for allowing us to use their studio for the interview segment of the video. You can watch it down below if you scroll down to the bottom of the post. Usually, we work with just one local artist but having an entire collective assisting certainly sped up the progress of the Louisville mural.

OSRS x Greetings Tour - Greetings from Louisville Sign

Lisa’s mom made a guest appearance, and we had some quality time to hang out with her during and after the mural. Living on the road, it’s a challenge spending time with family. As a result, we cherish any chance that we have that opportunity! Being mobile full time means that we don’t usually have to plan that far out in advance. It also means we can easily accommodate changes of plans we well since we don’t have to deal with hotels and accommodations. This is one of our favorite parts of the RV life.

Louisville Asian Mural Artist - Greetings Tour

Lisa Beggs Photography from Scissor Lift

This was the first mural that we painted back in the contiguous states since we got engaged in Alaska. It was quite the road trip from as far north as Fairbanks to Louisville! It’s wonderful to be able to experience so many cultures across this beautiful country, and we wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

Greetings from Louisville Mural - Property Owners in KY

On our final day in Louisville, we met up with John and Mary Kay one last time in front of the mural. These two had the original idea to make this area a better place and we’re honored they asked us to do so! Being at the wall every day, we really got to know the people that make up this neighborhood. Bar owner Lou across the street and his regular customers, the filling station attendants at Speedway, next door neighbor Larry whose dog that had three chihuahua puppies while we were there. Every mural has a story, but Louisville had many. Thank you to those who stopped by to give us water, Lisa’s mom for flying into town, and especially John and Mary Kay who kept this mural alive after most donors pulled out their funding! We hope to see you all real soon.

Greetings from Louisville Mural Sign by Victor Ving & Lisa Beggs

“We originally reached out to Victor’s mural agency looking for some ideas on what to do with blank wall that faced Churchill Downs. He told us about his personal Greetings Tour project, and we thought it would be a great fit for our community. Together, we came up with content that was relevant to our city and created a piece of public art that warmly welcomes locals and visitors to the neighborhood. They were incredible to work with! We beam every time we drive up to the mural, and cannot thank them enough.”

— John & Mary Kay Dixon / Property Owners in Louisville, KY

“We were honored when the Greetings Tour reached out to collaborate with us on the Greetings from Louisville mural. Since we all come from a similar graffiti background, it was a great opportunity for us to collectively show a broad range of abilities using spray paint as our medium of choice. Being born & raised in Louisville, we were happy to suggest some imagery and even have a hand in designing some letters that we worked on. The end result was a mural that became an iconic symbol for our home town that we are extremely proud of being involved in!”

— Often Seen Rarely Spoken / Louisville Artist Collective