paint your faith

The Paint Your Faith Vancouver empty canvas for us to paint

Just wanted to introduce the wall we are going to paint in a few days here in Vancouver. It is located at 55-57 W.Hastings St. a building which is owned by Lee Chu and her family. She kindly donated the wall but with a little bit of reservations. The city of vancouver has clauses that protects it from liability issues when these projects happen and rightfully so. We made sure our insurance named the building and also covered off any liability that Lee Chu and her family would have once we got going on her wall. We indemnified her from any liability and we have taken safety precautions and cleaned up the lot to make sure the artists will be safe.

The wall is located in the DTES, an area in Vancouver that has an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life. The wall has had graffiti on it in the past and Lee Chu had to spend money cleaning up the wall many times.

This time around when the wall is hit, it will be with amazing artwork created by our artists Titi Freak, Indigo, Peeta and Faith47.

We know this wall will do what the wall did in Toronto, it will lift the spirits of people who walk by it and will inspire individuals to look, reflect and put a smile on their face.

Finding a wall to do this type of work is sometimes the hardest aspect of putting together these types of projects.

We went through quite a lot of steps and challenges to secure this wall. We first applied for the Graffiti Management Program in Vancouver. The program was cut before we had a chance to be accepted. We then tried to go through the beautification program here in Vancouver called “Great Beginnings” we suggest people who need to improve their buildings to apply and get involved because it is a great program and Kristina Copepland at the City was an amazing help however we decided not to go with the program because of our timeline. The City needed a lot more time to facilitate this type of execution and production and we needed to do this before May because the artists were not going to be available and our sponsor wanted to have it completed before June.

Once we knew we wanted the wall it started with contacting the owner, then dealing with the city, then the empty lot owner and going through the process of making sure nothing was going to block our mural or get in the way for at least a year or more. There would be no point to do this type of project if the wall and area would be blocked within a few months.

This was Indigo’s dream wall and she now gets to be a part of it. For the artists from abroad, Titi and Faith47 have never been to Canada, it is amazing that Vancouver is their first place they will visit because it is just beautiful out here.

This wall is just not another wall, the painted bricks we coated with primer and have prepared for the artists is now their canvas and this is where their work will be done, just like any other artist who does it in their studio, however the big difference is this canvas is also the people canvas because it is outdoors in the community and accessible for those to see it develop. This form of art is pure, real, accessible and more public than other pieces of work.

The artists can’t wait to get on the wall and we can’t wait to document it.

Cheers

Originally posted on Sojourners God’s Politics blog.

One of the reasons the St. Francis quip, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words,” is so often quoted is because it pokes fun at Christians’ propensity to think sharing our faith is primarily about words. And for good reason. We study the words of the Bible. Our church services are filled with words. Our endless discussions on hot-button issues overflow with words. Even prayer, our most intimate form of communication, is nearly always reduced to mean those prayers we make with words.

But if mere words were enough, perhaps the Word we worship wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Sharing our faith can’t be reduced to rehearsed sound bite, but is something as complex, sensitive, and alive as we are.

In September 2009, The United Church of Canada’s WonderCafe online discussion forum (www.wondercafe.ca) invited four internationally acclaimed aerosol artists to show faith can be much deeper, richer, and more complex than most people think. Their resulting “Paint Your Faith” mural collaboration in Toronto’s downtown core is a unique public display of faith filled with colors, shapes, imagination, and emotion.

The massive 30- by 60-foot wall where the Paint Your Faith mural was created could have been prime commercial advertising space, but Metropolitan United Church instead used it to beautify their community and bring the inner life of the church out into the streets.

Each of the four aerosol artists worked on a quadrant of the wall. The graffiti-like styling of the word “Yahweh” by Toronto’s Mediah provides a foundation for the mural in the bottom left area. At the top left, another Toronto artist, Elicser, offers flowing imagery depicting a family’s complex engagement with faith, religion, and life.

The top right corner of the mural is dominated by San Francisco artist Chor Boogie’s powerful spiritual symbolism and the rainbow of “color therapy” techniques for which his work has become known. In the lower right, Siloette, also of San Francisco, offers her own stunning expression of faith in the form of an angelic woman in prayer. At the center, the four pieces of the mural are brought into harmony by the gentle and innocent image of a child filled with wonder by the surrounding expressions of faith brought to life on the wall.

Of course, public displays of faith are nothing new for the church. Almost from the beginning the church has used its buildings and public spaces as expressions of faith, from the towering architecture of steeples and sanctuaries to the sublime and gentle beauty of gospel stories wrought in stained glass.

Yet, in our post-Christendom era, we lack a shared understanding of religious symbolism that was once assumed. For many, the symbols of faith carry a lot a baggage — both good and bad — and that makes it difficult to use these symbols as a place to start a discussion about the things we consider important in life.

By sidestepping traditional and predictable religious symbols, art like the Paint Your Faith mural raises opportunities for us to share our values, hopes, and dreams about those things we find beautiful. These are issues of faith, and there’s no reason the church shouldn’t raise them in the streets as well as from the pulpit.

Paint Your Faith is a way of praying in color with the world. It is an expression of our spirits that goes beyond words, yet can be shared by all.

Click here to watch a video about the Paint Your Faith. Watch here for more details.

Aaron McCarroll Gallegos is executive producer for The United Church of Canada’s WonderCafe.ca.