Tokeya Waci U Richardson, the artist working on a mural for the Vermont Street garage, is designing the project around the culturally diverse local community, and he’ll be inviting Lawrence folks to paint with him to instill community ownership in the project.

Richardson, Oglala Lakota and Haliwa-Saponi, was selected by the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission to paint the mural on the ground-level, west-facing wall opposite the stairs on the Vermont Street side of the structure. The garage is at 725 Vermont St., next to the Lawrence Public Library.

Richardson said he hopes to begin painting the 18-by-10-foot mural around mid-March or early April, depending on the weather. He said that the project will be completed before the start of the summer. 

Lawrence city commissioners gave Richardson’s mural proposal their approval Tuesday as part of their consent agenda. 

Richardson said he was asked for a design that represents the community and Lawrence.

He said that a key factor to his love for Lawrence — and what drew him back after moving away twice — is the diverse backgrounds of people and cultures, both Native and non-Native. He plans to represent this trait in the mural. 

Richardson said that the longevity of his art’s impact is always at the forefront of his mind. So he will be inviting the community to paint or just talk with him to tie a story and community ownership to the project. 

“With the intention of including the community to come and paint with me is to plant the seeds of growth,” Richardson said. “Maybe I’m planting the seed for this future artist … for this person that will one day paint a mural here in the city that they love and grew up in, too. But it’s also planting seeds for opening everyone’s mind’s eye about, you know, there’s no supreme culture here.”

He said he will paint certain pieces of the mural before blocking them out and allowing community members to paint other sections with paintbrushes or even their hands, in the case of sunflowers or buffalo wool.

Richardson will put a buffalo at the center of the mural because of its cultural significance.

“As Plains Native Americans, we live off the buffalo and everything, like our livelihood, was based on the buffalo. It’s how we survived,” Richardson said. “So we made a lot of tools, we made a lot of our clothing, our houses, even our games. We used everything from that buffalo.”

Richardson said that his work is also meant to call people to action to hold each other accountable toward protecting a collective future, especially following recent detainments and shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“ICE is moving in a sense that is totally against what Native Americans solely believe in — protecting life and allowing it to thrive,” Richardson said. “We’re all about love. We’re all about family. We’re all about trying to protect this life and trying to further it for our future generations.”

He aims to include a collection of meaningful, smaller details within the painting so that people can both find new details each time they view it. Examples of this are sunflowers representing Kansas, or two constellations that hold significant meanings in Lakota culture.

“I truly believe that if everyone in the community is involved with something like this, then the community will always protect it,” Richardson said.

Richardson has previously completed three murals for Haskell Indian Nations University, has two pieces on bus shelters and has designs featured on two small buses in the city. He also had his piece, “The Lance and Shield Buffalo Robe,” selected as part of the Spencer Museum of Art’s 2024-2025 Native Fashion exhibition.

Richardson said he will post flyers online via social media inviting the community to come paint with him once he finalizes the dates. His Instagram is @coup_count.designz.

See more of Richardson’s work on his website, coupcountdesignz.com. 

Logan Pierson (he/him), reporting intern with The Lawrence Times since December 2025, is a senior journalism and photography student at the University of Kansas. He previously contributed to the University Daily Kansan as a senior reporter and beat reporter.

Read his work for the Times here.

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