Some of you asked to see pictures of Chor on the rooftop! Here are a couple. Plus shots of Titi Freak and Indigo at their show at the Ayden Gallery.

This is a short blurb and I’m sorry i haven’t responded to comments on the other blogs, we’ve been going at it hard… but I’ll get to responding this weekend as I unpack and filter through all that we’ve shot and experienced with this amazing crew of artists.

So in the final days of the Paint Your Faith mural, the artists worked hard in hail, rain and all kinds of weather, including finally sunshine on the last day. Chor Boogie climbed up 2 rooftop levels to get to the main steeple of the First United Mission at Hastings and Gore. Balancing on a couple ladders, he started painting his colour magic on that steeple that looks onto one of the busy intersections of DTES. Lots of people stopped by to watch him add some colour to this part of the DTES.  The rest of the crew finished up at the wall at Abbott and Hastings, in time for a press conference.

I’ll write a proper blog to fill you in on the other goings on in the next couple days. Peace.

Ann

On April 28th, we hosted a reveal to press, First United Mission stakeholders and staff, the public and friends from the neighbourhood.  First Mission United (http://firstunited.ca/) announced an amazing building project that will help them continue the amazing work they already do in the DTES.

If you live in Vancouver or are visiting please get down to the corner of W.Hastings St. and Abbott and view this spectacular piece of art work.

Visit us at www.paintyourfaith.com and leave a comment and share this with friends for your chance to win a print from one of the artists.  We will be giving four people a chance to win one piece.

Paint Your Faith Vancouver Mural Completed

Here is a pic just before the final last touches. Big difference from where we started just last week.

mural just before completion just a few more touches and a bit of work

What an experience it has been.  We started with an empty canvas, a messy and dirty lot filled with needles, garbage, weeds and completely neglected and we are now at the end.

Below is Indigo putting the final leaf and finishing the mural.

Indigo putting the final leaf on the mural and we are now complete

Titi starts the wall

The development of the mural on the wall at W.Hastings and Abbott has become more than just an art mural. Things have become more about the community than we ever thought.

Last week Dominique, who is originally from Quebec was in the lot cleaning and removing needles, debris and leaves. She flew from Quebec, found a area in a city in need and has shown up to clean, make friends and create change. If anyone ever thinks that you can’t change anything as one individual well Dominique is a good example that you can.

Dominique our friend from Quebec here in Vancouver to clean up the DTES.

The progress and development of the wall has gone quite well. We affixed a tarp because the weather in Vancouver has been so unpredictable. One minute it is raining the next minute it is sunshine, then it rains again and so on and so on and so on.

Here is Faith47 in action on the wall and trying to finish her section.

Faith47 finishing up her section of the wall

Indigo working on her section of the wall. She has been amazing at her stencils and so good with her work.

indigo in action on the wall at W.Hastings and Abbott

Peeta has been smooth and chilled while doing the wall.  He does amazing work and is quite talented.

Peeta and his pinecones beauty and intellectual art

The wall has become more than just an art mural development project. The community has stepped up more than I would ever imagine.  We have Dominique and her friends cleaning up the lot. They took hundreds of stones and have created a peace symbol. They have moved so much garabage and debris. Bruce and Larry two local fellows have been pushing and asking for a community garden. Locals from the DTES have been coming by everyday and thanking us and congratulating us. I think the DTES is a misunderstood place because I’ve never felt such a sense of community like I have here while doing this project.

Here is a pic of some of Dominiques friends. What a great bunch of people from the area who want to see more for this area.

dominique and her team of friends from the DTES area

We are almost there and close to completion, but I believe our work will never stop in this area and somehow and someway we will keep this project living for many years to come.

Filming in the rain today, Faith 47 is almost finished her inspiring centre piece for the wall mural. Indigo’s 9ft image is finished of a girl blowing a dandelion, the fluff transforms as you follow it across the mural. Titi Freak is almost done his favela/people paintings and Peeta has started on his second piece. The fun part of the day was following Chor Boogie up 2 sets of ladders to film him painting the steeple of the First United Church Mission. He’s a bird on a wire, a writer on a ladder. You gotta come to Gore and E Hastings to check him working out on the rooftop in the next couple days.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles instead...NOT

So what a week it has been.  On Saturday we started to learn that airports were starting to close all across Europe.  The Volcano eruption in Iceland was not only affecting thousands of passengers who were trying to get home but more importantly it was about to affect us. Faith47 our artist from Capetown, South Africa was suppose to be on a plane on Tuesday to Vancouver connecting through Frankfurt in Germany.  The Frankfurt airport was closed until further notice on the weekend, and we were now faced with the potential reality Faith47 would not be coming to Canada and creating her section of the wall and missing the artist gallery event at Ayden Gallery http://www.aydengallery.com/ this Saturday, April 24th.

We reached out to the travel agent in Capetown but because of the time difference we just missed the office closing on Saturday.  Email after email, voice message after voice message we called them to try and get us alternate flights.  Well airports finally opened early Tuesday however the flights are so backed up that it would be weeks before things got back to normal in Europe and specifically Frankfurt which was our connecting airport to Canada.

The travel agents in Capetown, said they would get back to us but they never really did, they never came back with any alternates and at the end of the day they never came through for us.  At that moment, I decided that enough was enough and I was determined to get Faith47 to Canada and to be a part of this.  It is Tuesday and Faith47 is not coming.  The ramifications of her not arriving would be tremendous.  How can we do her section without her, could we get another artist to do it who would keep the same them, would the city of vancouver allow us to alter the image since it was approved based on the draft we submitted. We even thought of maybe bringing her back in June to finish her section on her own, but that really didn’t make any sense.  Trying to find an alternate artist really would have been difficult because of the various factors like paint, right fit with other artists, and so on and so on.

Always have a back up plan and another back up plan.  That’s what they tell you in school, in workshops and what you learn along the way in the business of events production and marketing.  Well how do you have a back up plan when the world is in a bit of massive travel chaos and the airlines aren’t answering the phones, the travel agents aren’t responding and your artist is not feeling good about the situation for a variety of reasons, and probably doesn’t want to travel because of what is going on.  I don’t own a private jet, the continents aren’t connected by bridges or underground tunnels, and they don’t make boats that can get her fast enough.

We had to find a way to get her.   Well, one the most important part of this business is your partners, the people you choose to support, supply, and help you when you need it most.  A good supplier is not just about giving you a good product but more importantly the service when you get it, or don’t get it, or need it right away.

I reached out to my best friend Ryan Cresswell from FCMTravel in Chicago http://www.us.fcm.travel/eng/home.html, yes Chicago, not Toronto, not Vancouver but a travel specialist who is a wizard with finding flights, times and getting you to wherever you need to get in any circumstance. It is not the fact he is my best friend but he is a true professional and cares.  We knew the travel agent in Capetown was not going to come through, we needed alternate flights and options so we searched and searched and searched and it was not looking good.

So far things had been running smoothly assembling and piecing this project together.  We got the artists we wanted, we got the wall we wanted, our doc was going to happen, we arrived in Vancouver and things got off smoothly and we were a few days away from getting up on the wall.  This was just going to be such a huge set back.

We never gave up and our first search found some flights through the USA and the pricing wasn’t too bad.  We knew we would get a full refund back from Luftansa so we knew what we could afford in order to fix the situation and get Faith47 to Canada.  Well, the flights through the USA wouldn’t work because we needed a transit VISA to go through the USA from South Africa and even though Faith47 has a British Passport and living in South Africa it wouldn’t matter.  We needed 72 hours to apply for one and do the whole waiver thing but that would mean she would come on the weekend or maybe Monday if we got it approved. There was no way we could go through the USA it was now not an option.

So now it is not looking good.  Ryan kept searching and he came up with flights through South America, prices were fine, all look good but the return dates had to be May 2nd.  Well, Faith47 has a project in Europe around May 8 and she was going to be away from her family for over 10 days which wasn’t cool and this flight pattern was not going to work.  Totally understandable and we now had to look for another flight that could work.

For a few hours it seemed pretty dire.  A million thoughts were going through my head, I called Indigo to get her opinion, I ran through 10 different scenarios.  I kept the United Church of Canada key stakeholders up to speed throughout the entire situation and I was as transparent as possible.  They understood the situation and realized we had to do whatever we could do to bring Faith47 to Canada.

Well after hours and hours of trying we did find a flight that could possibly work, but this flight pattern is a travel itinerary from hell.  It would involve over 40 hours of travel from South Africa to Canada, Faith47 would connect through four cities, travel through four continents and it would just be nasty.  At first we thought this just would be nuts to do, but both Faith47 and I have done these flights before and they are possible to handle but not fun. After discussions with the United Church of Canada, Ryan at FCMTravel and most importantly Faith47, Faith47 said she would do the flights as long as it could get her back home before May 1st or on May 1st.

Not too many people would do this type of flight and I really think she is a pretty amazing person for agreeing to come based on this flight. Had she said no we would have understood and there was really nothing we could do because no one anticipated this Volcano eruption and how it would affect the world.

We can’t thank Faith47 enough for doing this and really stepping up to make it here.  Check out this flight pattern and time she will take to get here.  5:00 am flight from Capetown to Johannesberg, then layover and flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil, layover and then a flight to Mexico City, Mexico, then a layover and then a flight to Vancouver.  She will be traveling for about 40 hours and will arrive in Vancouver this Thursday evening at 11 pm.

If there is a will there is a way and we made it happen.  She is on her way here, she will be a few days late but everyone is ready, prepared and timing will be tight, but she will be able to make the best of such a messed up situation.  Her accepting this new itinerary was truly up to her and again I can’t say how pleased and excited we are to have her again with us.

Wall vs Mural

We are a few days away from the production of Paint Your Faith Vancouver and the anticipation is overwhelming, exciting and it is a great feeling to know that all the work we’ve done over the past six months is now coming to fruition.  We are in the midst of also producing an artist showcase and gallery event at an amazing gallery in downtown Vancouver, near Chinatown called Ayden Gallery owned by Ken Lum.  Ken has an amazing place and probably one of a kind in Canada.

We are doing something new for the Paint Your Faith project and that is adding an artist showcase to celebrate the past artists and the new ones we are working with.  During that process we created a before and after canvas while I was at our reproduction printers today.  ABC Photo in Vancouver is handling all of our print reproductions, these guys are amazing and can’t believe they are pumping out so much work in such little time, thanks again guys.

So back to this before and after thought I had today.  Since we are printing the before and after shots I thought I would share this with those who can’t be with us at the Gallery event this Saturday, April 24th.

There is an adage which many of you may know, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This adage refers to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text.  No matter which way you look at it, the areas which we have chosen to develop the murals are complex, misunderstood.  Places where hopes, dreams, pain, hurt all collide, thrive or die.

This wall could have been used and leased to companies like CBS Outdoor, Pattinson, Viacom or other large media companies who make millions of dollars off of advertising, but the Metropolitan United Church who owns the property decided to donate the wall to us for this project.  Lifting the spirits of the area, putting smiles on peoples faces, and giving people an inspiration was far more important than just profits. It is something you don’t see every day in the mass consumption world we live in.  Imagine replacing a few advertising billboards with artwork created by the type of artists we are working with, or having more organizations taking proactive approaches to improving a local area with this type of project.

I had lunch today with Sandra Severs who runs the First United Mission Church and  is one of our local partners. She asked me why we choose the downtown east side in Vancouver. The obvious answer was, the wall is at Abbott and W.Hastings St. which happens to be in the DTES, but more importantly, this mural has a chance to brighten up the area, get people to talk about the work, help create conversation about the theme, and it creates awareness for what First United Mission does day in and day out, which is being one of the strongest support pillars for the community in the DTES.

Back in Toronto, the wall is visited by local people, some groups come to have moments of prayer and reflection, tourists come by and take pictures and share it with their friends in other cities, it is admired by anyone and everyone who passes by the major intersections at Church and Shuter.  Even 8 months after the fact, the press are still writing about it, people are still blogging about it, and pictures and videos are being shared with family and friends.  The wall which is now are has become a part of the community and touches peoples lives everyday.

So I guess I would ask you this, would you rather have a billboard up with an advertisement or a piece of beautiful artwork in your neighbourhood.