A canvas on Selkirk Avenue

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This article was published 26/02/2018 (2946 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Main Street became an outdoor gallery featuring local artists’ creativity, and while there’s still a lot of space to play with their imagination, Graffiti Art Programming found another special clear canvas.

GAP will be hosting a Community Mural Project where artists and community members will be creating and painting together one of the exterior walls of the Indigenous Family Centre. As part of the project, GAP will be holding five indoor mural workshops led by artistic director Pat Lazo and artist Jordan Stranger from Peguis First Nation. The first meeting took place on Feb. 20.

“Our back wall got tagged a lot, so we thought that if there’s a mural, there’d be some nice art and then maybe it would stop getting tagged,”  IFC children and family co-ordinator Nathalie Vander Zaag said, adding the area feels like it’s been forgotten by the city.

GAP applied for a grant to do a mural at the Boldness Project, and there was enough money for them to do two, so the IFC contacted them and proposed that they’d do something on their back wall.

The mural will be made of panels that will be mounted to the back of the building. The images will be complementary to the Jackson Beardy’s piece titled Peace and Harmony painted on two walls that overlook the Powers Park and Selkirk Avenue. Lazo said they wanted the community to have ownership of this new painting and there’ll be many opportunities for people to get involved.

“The first two workshops are more brainstorming, but this mural, in particular, we’d like to compliment because this build has a very significant mural designed by Jackson Beardy and we want to pay homage to that and speak from a different perspective,” Lazo explained.

“That was in 1984, perhaps things can be said differently (now), or other ideas can be brought forward that are relevant or perhaps they’ll be similar because the image is timeless, but it will be by community members and Stranger, and I’m helping.”

Stranger said he’s honoured to be making an art piece that’s going to be standing beside Beardy’s work. He said they’ll keep their painting similar that what was done before because it’s timeless and has its own style.

Piece and Harmony depicts a human figure offering a pipe to a geometric figure, which symbolizes the relationship between humans and nature and what comes of that prayer.

“Maybe we can have an ‘after.’ The end product of what happened out of that praying. The prayer for a lot of Indigenous leaders is that we can all work together down the road and they talk of the seven sacred fires and the seven sacred teachings that the seven sacred beings gave to us at the beginning of time,” Stranger explained. “The end product will be what we have always been praying for. I think it’s just to show that the prayers have been answered and that people are working together.”

Lazo added when people see the process of creating a mural from nothing to finish, it feels like they are a part of it and when they look at the work that it takes to build it by hand, it’s more appreciated, and it beautifies a community.

“No one is going to take ownership of a grey wall, and no one is going to feel connected to that grey wall. Murals, especially ones that you’re consulting the community or you’re talking about issues that are relevant to what’s going on in your city, it speaks to people.”

Everyone is welcomed to the workshops, and no painting skills are required. At each workshop, there will be food and bus tokens available to those who need them. Children are welcomed with a supervising parent or guardian. The next workshop takes place on March 6 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at IFC (470 Selkirk Ave.).