Wild Urban Medicine Murals Take Root Along the 40 West ArtLine

Artist Katy Casper is no stranger to 40 West Arts District. Her murals can be found in the form of mazes and interactive games along the 40 West ArtLine and inside CO Mills as part of a partnership with 40 West to bring art to Lakewood’s largest shopping destination. But if you’ve wandered down Lamar Street recently near the W Line light rail station, you might have seen Katy applying colorful paint to her largest project in the district to-date.

Riverpoint Partners CEO Reid Davis and his partners at CentrePoint Properties have invested $100,000 in new murals at Lamar Station Apartments, located at 1450 Lamar Street along the 40 West ArtLine. This is the largest mural project in the history of 40 West Arts District and a gorgeous, colorful addition to the corridor along this central spine that connects Lamar light rail station to amenities along Colfax Avenue including Lamar Station Plaza and Casa Bonita.

But there’s more to these murals than meets the eye. Katy Casper has always been a fan of the natural world. Her background is in permaculture and when she started to brainstorm a concept for this mural project, her mind went in the weeds. “Weeds are a societal concept, this idea that certain plants are bad and shouldn’t be around. And often when you are fighting a particular weed in your yard, it likely has medicinal properties.” Katy built from this idea to create a series of murals that highlight plants that grow naturally and abundantly in the urban landscape but are often seen as pests.

Her series of murals, collectively called ‘Wild Urban Medicine’ will celebrate these plants and their properties to heal. Viewers can dig even deeper to find another underlying meaning. “We have all felt like a weed at some point in our lives - unwanted, unappreciated” Katy says. “Celebrating these plants and their magical properties is also about creating more self-acceptance, creating more self-love.”

Each mural will have a plaque located next to it, describing the plant’s medicinal properties and uses. Katy hopes that these murals might encourage people to look at their surroundings a little differently. In many ways, it’s a perfect concept for a corridor that is seeing a resurgence of energy after years of being overlooked. Just like the weeds that grow in cracks along the sidewalk, Lakewood’s West Colfax corridor showcases tons of resilience, tenacity and hidden beauty.

If you’d like to see more of what Katy Casper and her awesome crew are up to, check them out on Instagram:

Katy Casper, Joe Coradlo, Bobby MaGee Lopez, Jeremiah Jordan, Jared Parker, Jessica McMillan, and Micheal Jordan