Fresh face for Elderly

Popular instrument store begins work on mural project

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Elderly Instruments, Lansing’s famous purveyor of fine stringed instruments, is giving its Old Town headquarters a facelift. Los Angeles-based graphic artist Jennifer Springman began work on a Washington Avenue-facing mural June 8.

Don’t worry, she isn’t messing with the historic brick exterior of the century-old former Oddfellows hall that houses the store’s showroom. The mural will occupy the wall of the building directly north of the showroom. Elderly Instruments, which moved into the Oddfellows hall in 1984, purchased the building next door in 1994.

While most Lansing musicians are familiar with the showroom space, few realize that the store actually covers 35,000 square feet. The northern addition houses offices, inventory and the shop’s extensive mail-order operations. Stan Werbin, Elderly Instruments’ president, recruited Springman to create a mural to highlight this portion of its operations.

“It will give our current customers and new customers a clear idea of what we do, as well as put a bright new face on the Washington side of Old Town,” he said.

Springman, 34, has a family connection to the store: She is Werbin’s niece. Springman said she began discussing the mural with Werbin last summer while she was in town visiting family.

“He wanted to do something to communicate to the community what was inside the walls of the building,” Springman said.

The finished mural will include several instruments — including guitars, banjos and a ukulele — all based on instruments carried by Elderly Instruments. Werbin sent Springman links to instruments he liked from the store’s online catalog.

“He was pretty particular about which instruments to use,” Springman said.

The mural will also feature some local touches, including nods to the Capitol, the Brenke Fish Ladder and the iconic Old Town signs that mark the neighborhood’s boundaries. Springman said she wanted to design a mural that fit the “look and feel” of Old Town.

“It’s been great to see how excited the community is getting,” she said. “People stop and talk to me all the time, and it’s awesome.”

A graphic designer and painter, Springman is new to large-scale murals.

“This is the first big project like this for me,” she said, noting that a mural project that she helped with in high school gave her the technical knowledge to execute a large painting project.

Springman expects to finish the mural in a few weeks, weather permitting.

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