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ETNA GREEN - Artist Justin Vining may not have lived in his hometown of Etna Green for the last 20 years, but the community showed him the love over the past week as he painted their latest mural downtown.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place Saturday morning to officially unveil the 8-foot-by-32-foot mural of images selected by the town council made to look like a giant postcard.
Speaking to the dozens of people in attendance for the ceremony, which began at Remembrance Park, Vining thanked everyone for being there.
“I see so many familiar faces, from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday. I was either in one of two places. I was either painting or I was sitting on the truck tailgate drinking a gallon of water. I did sit under the awning in the shade quite a bit this week, too,” he said after noting he could have picked a cooler week to paint.
Vining said him painting the mural started with Suzie Light three years ago. She came into his Indianapolis studio and mentioned the possibility of doing a mural in Etna Green.
“Almost immediately I became territorial. I felt like the list of potential artists to do this was short, it was probably me or Jeff Klinefelter, and I feel like being from Etna Green, I really wanted to do it. So, I kept pursuing it and I met Amy (Roe) shortly thereafter, and she is tough, relentless and gets things done,” he said.
There were so many times over the last three years that Vining wasn’t sure the mural would become a possibility.
“But through her (Roe’s) perseverance, it came to be and we’re standing here today,” he stated.
“I think a lot of what I experienced this week - I’ve lived in Indianapolis for 20 years,” Vining began, becoming emotional. “And I do get emotional. I wondered if I would be received as an outsider. Being gone for so long, you don’t know. And this week I felt the love. I felt the love from the town. I barely had to bring any food, water, meals, sandwiches, ice cream, popsicles. This town came out. I had someone with me with almost every brush stroke of the mural. So, I am so proud to be from this town. I am so proud to be from Etna Green.”
After the crowd gave him a round of applause, Vining joked about losing weight from sweating so much in the past week painting the mural outside on the south side of the post office.
“Seriously, I had so much fun. It’s a little bit bittersweet to be done at this point. Thank you, everyone,” he concluded.
In starting Saturday’s ceremony, Etna Green Town Council President Heath Roberts said, “I’d like to thank everyone for coming this morning. This is going to be an awesome event here. We’re going to have a ribbon-cutting for this new mural, and I’m glad that everyone has showed up and we’re having this big community event.”
He thanked Vining for all his hard work, as well as the Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission; All Things Art Fund at KEDCO and Kosciusko Development Land Trust; Stichter Family Charitable Fund at the Kosciusko County Community Foundation; Silveus Insurance Group, Strebig Construction; Alderfer Bergen & Co.; Family Express; and 107 N. Walnut St. property owners.
The mural is one of the projects developed with the assistance of the Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program (HELP) of Kosciusko County, which began in 2022 after the county applied for a grant through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA). Roe is the Kosciusko County community coordinator for HELP.
Middle District County Commissioner Cary Groninger said, “This HELP program that Amy’s been such a big part of, started over three years ago as we walked through how we can really create and just allow each one of our small communities to just become all that they can become.”
He compared it to flavors of ice cream.
“Kosciusko County is blessed to have 14 small communities in our county, and I think each community has its own flavor. So we look at it as whether you like vanilla, chocolate, whatever, we’ve got a community for you,” Groninger said. “So I just really think that it’s cool that Etna Green has continued on with their murals. This is just another opportunity to just have that distinct difference in each community of our county, and it’s exciting to see how this can grow and prosper and make Kosciusko a great place to live.”
He said he appreciated all the work that went into the mural.
“Amy’s kind of my chief cat herder when it comes to trying to keep all the small communities aware of what opportunities are out there and how they might be able to improve their community. It’s just cool to see this continuing to prosper, especially now that HELP’s going to start winding down, but we have a whole amenity program that is getting ready to start from our OIRI (Orthopedic Industry Retention Initiative) funds that (state Rep.) Craig Snow was able to get for us and excited to see other opportunities in our small communities around the county,” Groninger stated.
Roe thanked a list of community members who helped as part of the event, including Jason Hefner, Jennifer Hefner, Thaine Tribalski, Tracy Tribalski, Laura Baker, Kim Waggoner, Cindy Dossat, Elizabeth Tutorow and Susie Klinefelter.
“They were the ones that sat on the committee, decided the projects and helped us to move things forward,” Roe said.
Light told everyone, “In 1996, I was at the Community Foundation and one of the first grants we made at the Community Foundation was for the bandstand and the mural. I got to help Amy with the pillar that was Quality of Place, and your community members that represented Etna Green on that committee said, ‘Arts and culture are important to Etna Green. We’d like to maybe even be mural capital of Kosciusko County.’”
She said she likes to connect dots and she knew Vining was from the Etna Green area.
“And you know, when you’re a hometown guy, you’re always a hometown guy,” Light said. “... Justin, thank you for saying yes. Amy, thank you for being persistent. The committee members that served on Quality of Place, thank you for your input and representing Etna Green well.”
She told the town and their elected officials to keep getting things done and to keep up the good work.
Cori Humes, executive director with the Kosciusko County Convention & Visitors Bureau, said, “We’re so glad to be a very, very small part of this project. And thank you, Amy, again for your perseverance and Suzie. Justin, thank you so much. I’ve been driving by every day this week, seeing how your progress has been.
At the Visitors Center in Warsaw, she said they’re happy to be able to continue to promote “our arts and culture to visitors and residents through this mural, and continue to showcase why art is so important to our communities, and showing that quality of place.”
The mural will be added to the Visitors Center’s arts and culture public arts trail in their art spaces brochures that are marketed to visitors and residents alike.
There were then two ribbon-cuttings with Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rob Parker. The first was for those involved in the project, and the second was for everyone from the town.
Vining then had anyone who wanted to help finish off the mural by painting the bottom border.
