paint your faith

One of the key partners in the Paint Your Faith project is the First United Mission in the downtown east side of Vancouver. They do some phenomenal work in the DTES as a church that from its early days served as a mission. They’re open 24-7, 365 days of the year. They are so focussed on serving the needs of their community that the main chapel doesn’t hold any pews. Instead of wooden pews there are rows upon rows of bunk beds for homeless people to sleep in. I went in at about 2pm for a location scout and half the beds were full with people slumbering, or dazed and resting. First United not only gives people a place to sleep, they provide 3 hot meals plus a night time snack, and they provide essentials like condoms, footcare, ‘girlie things’, and squares of soap which have been painstakingly hand cut from a regular sized soap bars. On an average day they have 500 people coming through their doors. It’s awe-inspiring. In an age when people talk of empty churches, this is one church that is in constant demand.

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.