paint your faith

It is with great pleasure to present to the city of Vancouver, the community of the downtown east side and the rest of the world with an amazing piece of collaborative art work created by Indigo (http://indigosadventures.wordpress.com/), Titi Freak http://www.tfreak.com/, Faith47 (http://www.faith47.com/) and Peeta (http://www.peeta.net/).

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

It has been a gruelling week for all of our artists, and our film crew who are here shooting a treatment for the potential documentary we hope to do.  We have survived the crazy weather out here, one of our DP’s made it threw a beer can to the head, and we still managed to get in a few good dinners, some drinks and got to know each other better.

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

Below is where we have started. Titi arrived last Wednesday and on Thursday he helped frame the mural because Faith47 was arriving a day or so late. This is where it started.

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.

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.

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

Check out the line-up for Paint Your Faith’s Ayden Gallery exhibit on April 24. Please drop by if you’re in the neighborhood! (Click “Read More” to see the event poster.)

Ayden Gallery | 88 West Pender, 2nd Floor | Vancouver | 7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Faith47 | Indigo | Peeta | Titi Freak | Chor Boogie | Mediah | Elicser | Siloette | Dedos | Misk | Kaput | Scott Sueme | Phresha | Live Painting | DJ & Drinks | Free Admission

Here’s the event poster.

Titi's first crack and suggestion for our wall

Its been an interesting experience working on producing a wall of this size and event with artists who are in different parts of the world. In Toronto we had Chor Boogie and Siloette flown in, Elicser and Mediah were local and when they came together they just hit the wall and it was quite spontaneous, intense but truly original the form of street art. This time around in Vancouver our approach was quite different. The City of Vancouver has a tight program on street art and we had to apply for a permit, this required the submission of what the actual art work would look like on the wall we plan to create the art on. This meant reaching out to Faith47 in South Africa, Titi Freak in Sao Paulo and Indigo and Peeta in Vancouver and somehow coming together to plan how they would hit the wall together ahead of doing the work on-site and spontaneously. As a producer, we are use to the many moving parts involved with creating projects the size of Toronto and Vancouver, there are so many variables and anything could go wrong, but we managed to bring an amazing crew of talent, work with so many great partners and supporters and we are all pretty excited about how the wall will look at 55-57 W.Hastings St. For anyone who plans to work in Vancouver, be prepared that the process is quite deep and there are many many details you need to cover. These types of projects are great for the city, community and especially the local people who will see the art everyday. I hope to share more of my experience and happily give anyone advice on doing this in your city or local community.

Titi started to give it some life and colour

Alan Serpa is producer for Paint Your Faith Vancouver and Toronto.