In order to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, Humboldt will join over 100 communities across the country to create a collection of murals for Canada 150 Mosaic with Sturgeon County, AB artist Lewis Lavoie.
Humboldt and District Museum Director Jennifer Hoesgen announced on Oct. 22 that Humboldt will be apart of the project.
“The mural committee was looking to see how can we do another work of art in Humboldt and how do we celebrate Canada’s 150 birthday in 2017.”
Only five to fifteen communities per province will be chosen to have a mural and Hoesgen says Humboldt wanted to get their bid in early.
“We thought that this would be great opportunity for the Humboldt community to jump on board, literally, and be apart of this really big national project.”
All murals will have a train theme made up of 300-750 individual tiles and if each mural was linked it would be one long train connecting all the territories and provinces, representing the railway that connects Canada.
The murals will stay in the city it was created but “the mural, if ever connected, would be over 365 meters wide or 4 football fields.” says the website.
Hoesgen says that they want a lot of community involvement in painting all the tiles.
“Everyone is going to be able to paint their individual tile. When you put all those tiles together, they’re going to create Humboldt’s Canada 150 Mural.”
With 750 individual tiles to paint, many people will have the chance to be a part of the project.
“The beauty of all the little individual tiles, you can have one that is Alexander Von Humboldt painted, you could have one that’s the Hockeyville logo, when they all come together, it’s going to all be linked.”
Hoesgen says that they are planning different opportunities to get people painting tiles but the primary event will be in conjunction with Summer Sizzler on Jun. 17 and 18. Assembly of the mural will take place on Jun. 19.
In discussion with the artist, the mural committee has come up with a concept that will be the theme of Humboldt’s train car. That will be announced on a later date, says Hoesgen, but it is a “fabulous concept.”
“We’re waiting for the artists to put that into something visual, so we will be announcing that in the next couple of months.”
The mural committee had many drives around town looking for the perfect location for the mural.
“They really had a good discussion about site lines,” says Hoesgen, “we want to make sure this mural is well viewed.”
Safety was also an issue with the location since the committee wanted a safe place people could stop and view it.
“This is the type of mural you want to see close up because everybody wants to see each individual tile but you also need to see it from far away.”
The committee did have a favourite location that they wanted to use and with a request to the owner, they were able to secure the Sasktel building on Main Street, says Hoesgen.
“We were really excited that they said yes, they were going to come on board.”
Tara Tibeau was at the announcement on behalf of Sasktel, and she says they are very excited to be apart of this project.
“We’re really proud to be apart of this community and we couldn’t be more pleased we’ll have such a beautiful piece of artwork on our building that people will be coming by and enjoying.”
The mural project really supports Humboldt values as well, says Hoesgen as it is about being welcoming and creative.
Mayor Malcolm Eaton is excited for the project since it will tie Humboldt to the rest of the murals.
“To think of how that tied to all these other murals across the country that’s going to celebrate our heritage and our culture and our community and our people, it’s just a wonderful project.”
Eaton finished by thanking the mural committee, “on behalf of a grateful community.”
With such a collaborative piece, Hoesgen says that instead of asking for really big donations, they are looking for community involvement on the donation side of it as well as the painting side.
“A donation of $20 is as important as a donation of $2000 dollars. All those names will be listed as part of the mural.”
For those who want to donate, they can do so at City Hall.
