Paintings stolen during East Lansing Art Festival

LANSING - Several pieces of artwork were stolen this weekend during the East Lansing Art Festival.

Bala Thiagarajan , a Chicago artist, said six of her paintings were stolen from her booth either late Saturday evening or early Sunday morning.

“They managed to navigate around my booth and grabbed specific paintings,” she said, noting the stolen pieces were her most high-profile.

The value of the stolen artwork was $3,400, Thiagarajan said. Among the pieces were paintings of an elephant, a peacock and several intricate shapes.

“I worked on (the elephant piece) all last month and finished it for festival,” Thiagarajan said.

“It’s infuriating to have shown it one day and then it’s gone," she added.

Her booth was zip-and-cable tied, leading her to believe whoever stole the pieces crawled underneath the booth’s covering to get to the paintings.

East Lansing Police Lt. Scott Wriggelsworth said the work of two other artists also was stolen over the weekend and that the department's detective bureau is investigating.

East Lansing Art Festival Director Michelle Carlson said the festival has contracted Proguard Security Services Inc. to provide security at the festival for at least the past three years. Members of the festival's board plan to meet with ELPD and Proguard in the coming weeks to evaluate what happened and determine how to improve security for next year's festival.

Anyone with information on the thefts can contact the East Lansing Police Department at 351-4220.

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.