Exploring St. Cloud’s Rich History Through Walmart’s Community Art

If you've picked up groceries at the St. Cloud Walmart Supercenter in the last few months, you may have noticed a huge, colorful mural on the way into or out of the store.

It's big, taking up the entire wall.

What's really amazing is that it celebrates "St. Cloud: The Granite City."

Walmart works with the Los Angeles-based public art agency NOW Art to commission artists to create artwork through ttheir "Community Mural Program." Walmart adds art to stores they renovate or remodel.

Walmart recently remodeled their St. Cloud Supercenter. And as part of that, NOW Art was tasked with celebrating the St. Cloud community through art.

MEET WILL SWEENEY, THE ARTIST BEHIND ST. CLOUD WALMART'S INSPIRING MURAL

Will Sweeney is storyboard artist and an illustrator who currently lives in Massachussetts.

Sweeney's a talented artist with a large portfolio of art. Everything from story boards to comic books to promotional campaigns.

Sweeney learned of the Community Mural Project and applied with NOW Art to be part of it.

"I signed up to be one of their artists, and they picked me from a group of other people and assigned me that St. Cloud mural. That's how I ended up doing that."

Then the hard work began.

"I started off by researching, because I paint digitally, and I need all kinds of resources," he explained. "I do a bunch of research first, and then I start placing those ideas together."

He worked with the Stearns History Museum, the Paramount Center for the Arts and others to get a sense of the community and what is important to the St. Cloud community.

The museum "sent me a lot of photo reference and pictures that I could draw from. So I I'd borrow figures from within the photographs they sent and make them work in the composition," says Sweeney.

He then contacted the people associated with each of the landmarks he was looking at using in the piece.

"Each of the community landmarks that are included in the piece of artwork, I called each of those places up and asked them really what their organization was about, because you can't find that on the internet."

Get our free mobile app

ART IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Sweeney is a digital artist, using his computer as his canvas to draw and paint and create.

The St. Cloud Granite City mural was designed and created digitally. It was printed large scale and installed in St. Cloud as part of the Walmart Supercenter renovation.

"I switched over to digital back like 20 years ago, and because I had to -- that's the way the industry was turning," he says.

But back in the day, Sweeney used pencils and paintbrushes to create.

"I still, when I go to create something digitally, I keep all those painterly lessons that I've learned up front. So I'm not trying to borrow images and change them to fit into the right places.  I'm actually drawing every single one and translating all that information into one unified style that allows you to kick in the whole thing."

THE WHOLE THING

Sweeney's mural is a touchstone of St. Cloud's history and culture. It includes everything from the Granite industry and quarries to the Munsinger and Clemens Rose Gardens -- even Vals Rapid-Serv.

"I was scared to put Vals in there," he admits. Then he saw the place, "and I knew that that would be where I'd go if had to eat."

Sweeney says he learned a lot about St. Cloud during the process.

"It was a pleasure to do. If I was going to say anything, it was a pleasure to learn about St. Cloud and get to apply all the things I love about making art."

"I think it's a great way to build a sense of community."

You can see more of Will Sweeney's work at WilliamHSweeney.com.