From July 5 to 12, mural painters will be applying their artistic skills to walls, fences, bricks and shipping containers throughout the Harmston neighbourhood and Gladstone Brewing in Courtenay.
The project takes its inspiration from other mural displays in places like Edmonton and Vancouver. Josh Klassen is behind the project and has been wanting to see Courtenay welcome the artistic installations.
“(The mural project) has been on my mind for so long. It’s been a dream. Seeing other cities and what they’re doing. I wanted to start with a free wall. I had one in Edmonton when I lived there. It’s just a space where people can come and paint whenever and it just gets painted over and over and over. That was a big part of it,” said Klassen.
Part of the mural project includes a self guided walking tour where the public can walk around the neighbourhood, using an online map to find the different murals.
The spaces for the murals started from Klassen just asking his neighbours if they were interested in having their fences painted as part of the project.
“I asked my neighbours if we could paint their fences. I have a garage in the alley that is already painted and people are starting to spread the word. There were a couple more spaces added just from the neighbours talking to each other and then wall spaces for painting have come up too.”
The project culminates with a celebration at Gladstone Brewing, including painting of their various shipping containers and other art activities on July 12, time to be announced.
“We have a couple of events happening around Gladstone. One of them is called an Exquisite Corpse. It’s like a drawing game where you fold a paper into thirds and then the first person draws the head, leaving where the neck would go. The next person, without looking at the head, draws the body and son on until it makes a full figure. So we are going to divide a wall into three sections so the artists can’t see what the others are doing.”
Also at Gladstone Brewing will be a game of musical chairs, art collaborative style.
“We have a bunch of canvases and artists sign up to paint and then it’s going to be an hour-long session. The DJ will play music and where it stops, they’ll walk up to a canvas and paint. Then they’ll start walking around the canvases again and end up at a different canvas when the music stops.”
Donations of paint have been coming in to help the project get off the ground and moving. This project is grassroots and as it is the first year, the planning is taking shape as time rolls on. Local vendors and shops are helping out and making this dream of Klassen’s come true.
“We applied for the Incubator, it’s called the Microgrant, it’s for the arts, so hopefully we get that.”
People already involved with the project are local artists Anouk Hartwell, Afton McCauley and Nate Schmold.
Wall Things Art is still looking for contributors so if you are interested in being part of the project, rolling up your sleeves and expressing yourself through paint in a mural, visit: wallthingsart.com.
