After nearly a year of planning, the Humboldt Canada 150 Mural is complete and City of Humboldt Director of Cultural Services, Jennifer Fitzpatrick, says the end result looks great.
“Even though we’ve been planning this mural for probably about a year we still didn’t know exactly how it would come together…I don’t think we really understood how beautiful the mural would be and the vibrant colours. We are just overwhelmed and it’s just beautiful.”
The mural was officially unveiled on Jun. 19 at the gallery after a busy weekend filled with all day painting sessions Jun. 17 and 18.
There was a big push near the end to fill all of the spots at the painting sessions after it was discovered they were still a couple of hundred people short, but the community came through, says Fitzpatrick.
“As the word got out, as people saw it, people kept just calling in so we actually ended up with more people to paint then we had tiles to accommodate…we were just really pleased.”
After the painting was completed on Jun. 18 the Canada 150 Mosaic Team began piecing together the tiles and worked until “the wee hours of the morning” on Jun. 19 to complete the mural, says Fitzparick.
There are approximately 750 tiles in the mural that well represents Humboldt residents including tiles painted by Glenn Hall and Lyndon Rush and tiles painted to depict Brianne Theisen-Eaton, Rusty Malinoski, Robbie Malinoski, Alexander von Humboldt, Elgar Peterson, the Our Humboldt Strategic Plan values, and Humboldt’s newest comic book superhero Auroraman.
“It’s what the community loves and feels about Humboldt and so the good thing is it was free flow. That way they could paint what was important to them… so when you put it all together you have what the community of Humboldt is.”
Fitzpatrick says the mural will be available for viewing in the museum for the next couple of weeks until it can be officially unveiled at its permanent location on the SaskTel building. An exact date is not known at this time but Fitzpatrick says they will be letting the community know when it will be going up in the near future.
Fitzpatrick would like to thank everyone for helping make this project a reality.
“Thank you to all the people who came out to paint, all the donors, all the volunteers, all the artists and certainly to the Canada 150 Mosaic Team who were fabulous to work for.”
See the video of the mural reveal on our Facebook page.
