Giant public art mural projects that honour and recognize the First People of this land have become a huge part of my life. Having witnessed what the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority accomplished with the Unity Wall on the breakwater at Ogden Point, BC Hydro and Tervita sought to honour the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations – particularly as it related to the massive cleanup and remediation process at the Rock Bay site which sits on their traditional territory and is adjacent to lands returning to the Nations. I was once again hired to work closely with both Nations, and the phenomenal design artists Butch Dick and Darlene Gait. Butch and Darlene designed ten individual designs and a transition design that would weave between each piece. A four hundred foot design was commissioned which would be painted TWICE to frame the Rock Bay site on Government and Pembroke just North of downtown Victoria.
I recruited a core team that started working in May of 2014 and then during the summer months we expanded the team to include 16 painters. The team worked painstakingly for six months to recreate the large scale form of Butch and Darlene’s designs. The mural was installed, unveiled and blessed in February of 2015. There is a short documentary about the project at the bottom of this press release: DOCUMENTARY
These photos are a behind the scenes look at the process of creating the mural – we worked out of the Songhees Wellness Centre – and the initial installation on site at Rock Bay.
