The 100-ft mural honoring the legacy of Prince will be officially unveiled on Thursday.
For the last two and a half weeks, Miami artist Heiro Veiga has been working on a large mural on the exterior of Ramp A in Minneapolis, located just a block from First Avenue Theater. The unveiling will be part of a larger “Purple Block Party,” which will be held outside Ramp A and will feature live music and food trucks. The block party begins at 7 p.m. and the mural will be unveiled at 9 p.m.
But several fans watched Viega put the finishing touches on the mural Wednesday. Trinia Miller has visited the site four or five times over the last few weeks to check on its progress.
“When I first came it was just the sketching, but the second day I came the bottom Prince was finished and then the other day they were starting on the second prince and I come today and he is almost complete,” Miller said. “This is so amazing.”
Miller said she grew up around Prince as a kid, who she said would come to her neighborhood and ride kids around on his scooter.
“This is so nice and then everyone that comes to Minnesota is going to be able to come right here and be like ‘wow’, and take a picture in front of it,” said Miller, who plans to attend the block party donning all purple. “This is awesome. This is so cool.”
The idea for a Prince mural at Ramp A has been in the works for seven years and has fueled over one million dollars raised for the project to be completed. Corporate sponsors in US Bank, Target, the Minnesota Twins, and Best Buy are involved as well. The money raised funded the painting as well as the preservation of the mural for the next 30 years.
Mark Stenger, a nearby resident, also took in the mural on Wednesday, and like Miller, has been checking up on it.
“What they did in the last 24 hours has been pretty quick, I didn’t think they’d finish on time,” Stenger said. “It fits really well.”