Mission’s newest piece of public art is a massive, brightly coloured mural along the Lougheed Highway.
After months of planning, designing and during the last seven weeks, application, the mural has sprung to life.
A team of University of the Fraser Valley students – enrolled in Chris Friesen’s Community Arts Practice course – worked every Friday, since the middle of June, to paint the mural and their hard work has paid off.
Friesen said he, and his students, were really looking forward to the project because – due to COVID – they hadn’t done anything out in the community for almost three years.
He said there was a lot of preparation work, picking a design, highway permits, machinery and more, but the project is about to be completed.
“We’re going to be close, to be honest. The weather has been on our side, though we had to pull the plug once because it was raining. Right now it’s a photo finish,” said Friesen.
The heat has also become an issue, both for the paint and the impact on the students.
The project is about 95 per cent complete and should be finished on Aug. 5.
“It’s health and safety first.”
The painting process has been “interesting” said Friesen, explaining that the students are only committed to one day (Fridays) a week, as they have other classes and jobs as well, so everything has to be brought in and taken down each time.
Equipment has to be picked up and dropped off, the road has to be closed, there’s no storage on site or even water for clean up.
“Cloverdale Paints (located just down the road from the project) has been gracious enough to let us use their back room. They’ve been a fantastic partner in this,” said Friesen.
While there have been the odd hurdles to jump, Friesen said the biggest issue was the size of the wall itself. When he first saw it, it was covered in graffiti and it was challenging to just put into context how much paint and work would be needed.
“We spent two full days just priming it,” he said. “The vastness of scale, even though we broke the design down to paint by numbers, you’re still painting something that huge.”
He explained that one stripe in the project is about 18 feet high by six feet wide, so it required three people to paint that in about an hour.
“So you have to break that down to see what can we get done in the time left in a particular day.”
As for the design itself, Friesen said basically, it’s a mural to reflect Mission.
“It’s a view of Mount Judge Howay,” he explained.
The image shows all four seasons and, knowing it is located on the highway, it was designed to be viewed from a car, rather than an image that you would stand in front of and gaze at.
“As you go past it, you’ll have the colour gradation and the seasons go by in one shot. It’s meant to be viewed at a distance and at speed. So, high bright colours and very basic design. You aren’t going to get a more rewarding view by standing in front of it,” said Friesen.
Emily Koenig is a student at UFV and one of two Mission residents who have spent hours working on the mural.
“It’s been really cool. Honestly I didn’t realize how much work goes into making a mural, but it’s a huge team that works eight hours every Friday,” said Koenig.
She thought the mural would have been completed faster, maybe in two days, but came to realize it is a massive wall, that’s worth the work.
“It’s nice to see more art in Mission. Honestly there isn’t a ton, it’s lacking. Mission doesn’t have very much art and it’s nice to see more,” said Koenig.
Fellow Mission resident Linda Walchuk has also been helping with the project.
The long-time artist discovered the project on Facebook and new she had to be a part of it.
“Where else can any painter ever do a mural this size,” thought Walchuk.
“When I saw it I thought I want to do this and it’s all legal.”
She has contributed by doing all the grid work on this “whole monstrous wall.”
“I love public art. We need more, more, more.”
The mural project was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the City of Mission, UFV’s School of Creative Arts, and the Mission Downtown Business Association.
