“Fish Fighters Lansing,” Bambery’s ArtPath mural under the west side of the Shiawassee Street Bridge over the Grand River downtown, is. There you’ll find two dozen bug-eyed cartoon fish, each one doing something different, and all of it to excess — riding a skateboard, painting a portrait, exploding into shards from drinking too much coffee, and so on.
“I don’t want to create a beautiful mountain on the side of a wall, you know?” Bambery said. “I take character depictions that are very abstract, like these fish. Anybody walking by should be able to identify themselves in these fish.” “Fish Fighters” taps into the crackling chaos at the core of creativity. Some of the fish look a bit underwater; others are downright fried. The “academic fish” with the melting eye is clearly in over his head, besieged by flying books. Even Bambery’s signature, in the mural’s lower left corner, reads “Joanisconfused,” which is also the name of her studio.
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