The Murals of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: "Rest in Peace"

 
 

Each year, we lose some good outdoor art in Winnipeg. For the year indicated, here's a last look at, a last goodbye to some of the artwork that has disappeared that year.


Displaying Locations 177-181 of 509

         

   
450 Laxdal Road   

This wall was rendered by Graffiti Arts Programming crew led by Charlie Johnston, Dave Bezilla and Richard Manoakeesick in 2000. The crew included Chad Reeves, Vincent Shorting, Nathaniel Bunn, Tara LaQuette, Brandi Williams, Melissa Honke, Jon Voss and Jeff Burling. It was painted over in 2008.

Original notes follow:

  
Charlie Johnston: “That Mural was done as the finishing project for the training program at Graffiti Gallery. We did this as the culmination of the program, the five-month training program where they're taught about Murals.”

“The trickiest part of this project is that it was the first time a school in Winnipeg had done an outdoor Mural. I worked with this outdoor committee discussing the project and cooking up the design; but at the 11th hour I had to resell the whole project to the school board who initially didn't think they wanted it. For some reason they thought there was going to be some sort of negative feedback from the community. Consequently we only had two or three weeks left to do that Mural. The day we finished it, it was raining and then the rain turned to snow and that was the end of the season.”

“Myself, Dave (Bezilla) and Richard (Manoakeesick) worked for the group of about 10 students. We cooked up the design between the three of us and the outdoors committee. We wanted an ‘education: past, present and future’ scene that's why there's a hover bus. We had pictures of their old school; what it was like in the past. One page is the past and, another page is the present, and the future is coming off of it. So we spent a lot of time juggling around with the design on the computer playing back and forth with these different elements.”

Dave Bezilla: “It was a large project, and all the people involved in this one were doing different projects. Charlie had an especially difficult job remaining with the students at all times during this project, whereas Richard and myself had a bit more freedom. Charlie really carried the ball on this project. We have a lot of students with very many different talents and specialties but it all came together, and everybody worked incredibly hard, especially the GAP kids. And you can see it! It looks good.”

Steve Wilson: “This was one of our biggest ones to date; 90 ft. long and 30 ft. high. There was a lot of red tape. We had to canvass an entire seniors complex across from this wall to make sure that no one objected to the style and the mural design. The school has been going through a number of changes, and now this no longer French immersion school so we are going to be going back to repaint the lettering so that it just says ‘Royal School’. It was a great fun project too. The students learned a lot about all the different aspects of murals: working with the client, getting the right materials, working high up. Charlie (Johnston) was invaluable to this project.”