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187 Garry Street (3)
Location Map
A younger B.B. King and Lucille (left); Robert Johnson (right)
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Location: E side; Front (West) Face
Occupant: Windsor Hotel
District: City Centre
Neighbourhood: South Portage
Artist(s): Mandy van Leeuwen, Jennifer Johnson
Year: 2001
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These two were done after the Chaplin Take Pride Winnipeg project and as a natural
extension of it. It could not be included under the auspices of Take Pride as it was too
similar to being an actual overt advertisement (the artists needed to obtain Permits from
the City as they were considered signage). The artwork helps to reinforce the perception
of the Windsor Hotel as being THE premier house of the pure blues here in Winnipeg.
These pieces are both signed works by the artists but you've got to look carefully to find
them. On the B.B. King board, their signatures are on the underside of Lucille. For
Robert Johnson, their signatures are again on the underside in the curvature of the guitar.
"We wanted to sign the pieces, but not prominently, as we felt it was the subjects that
were important, and not our own names," says Mandy.
Normally, Jen and Mandy have never had any problems whatsoever with perspective or
how their close up renderings would be discerned from the normal pedestrian viewing
distance. They were therefore a little shocked with their initial result here. Jennifer: "We
actually painted these in the living room in my old apartment. My living room was only
about 15 by 15 feet, and these panels were about 6 ft. by 6 each and Mandy and I were in
there working on both of them.; we were very close. So when we went to put them up
on the wall, we had never looked at them from a distance before. We had to go back and
make some considerable changes: Robert Johnson looked like he was possessed; B.B.
King didn't have a chin so we had to go back and fix them up after they'd been put up.
Up close it looked fine but faraway...!"
The clients liked Jennifer and Mandy as well as their work, so asked them to help out also
with the painting and restoration of the outdoor walls. Jennifer: "They called us back to
restore their original logo, 'Nothin' but the Blues' (see 187 Garry (1)), so we did that.
We used peel stick and restored it. It glues the old paint together and after we did that we
could just paint over the old imagery and fill in the blanks and then we cover coated it.
It's their hundredth anniversary this year [2003] and we'll be adding a large Charlie
Chaplin figure over the top of the entrance."
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