Sterling Heights mural celebrates the 'art to every science'

Just because he works in the manufacturing industry, Gino Lazzari sees no reason he can’t put his artistic skills to good use.

Lazzari’s colorful mural is the first thing you’ll see in the lobby of Tunkers-Mastech, an automation company in Sterling Heights. The mural was commissioned in 2015 by the north American branch of Tunkers to celebrate their first technology show in metro Detroit, and it comes with a promise of commitment to the region.

Tunkers vice president George Owens says the painting, which depicts the Motor City’s iconic buildings and cars, is a way of showing the company’s dedication to Detroit, and to choosing to stay in the area.

“We wanted artwork with a local flavor,” Owens says.

Having grown up in Sterling Heights, and attending Henry Ford II High School, Lazzari says he always had a love are art and music. He gravitated towards those as a student and is proud of the way he can bring his skills to his manufacturing work.

“After high school, I entered the tool and die manufacturing trade where every day was an excitement to see our hard work transform into a working piece of automation through the technological processes,” he says.

Lazzari’s parents also instilled in him, from an early age, an appreciation of both the auto industry and the artistic world.

“My father has always been into classic cars and cruising, and is also an accomplished sax player,” says Lazzari. “Spinning records of Motown and rock ‘n’ roll was as natural as making coffee in the morning.”

Both Lazzari and Owens believe that artistic skills are necessary in the auto industry, not just in the design aspects but also in the spatial reasoning required in the assembly process.

“A lot of times people forget that, they think because it’s machinery that it’s just parts moving back and forth,” says Owens.

“I believe every part of the auto industry world is birthed from a passion to create art in combination with science and technological processes,” says Lazzari. “You could say there is an art to every science and a science to every art.”