Winnipeg is the coldest city of over 500,000 people on the face of the planet — that is what you call bragging rites and the preamble to a don’t mess with people from this place kind of town. It is pretty much, as with a lot of prairie towns, an island to itself. Apparently, you have to drive four hundred days just to get to Minneapolis — which puts Winnipeg geographically somewhere hovering around the planet Jupiter. It has tended to deal with isolation and its share of challenges as far as poverty, unemployment and homelessness… by constantly punching way above its weight in terms of artistic output.

Case in point:

Winnipeg has become mural city… The murals of Winnipeg is a web site and work of astounding scale featuring thousands of photos of murals all over in Winnipeg. Bob Buchanan and his wife Louise do this as a pretty much full time labour of love in their retirement and along with Bob Bruce have taken this on for 6 years. It all runs so deep that it boggles the mind. Most of all, what shines through on the site is a real personal touch and a clear sense of care for the community and the artists.

Featured above is Charlie Johnston’s mural of West End Winnipeger Adam Beach. A lot of the murals figure heavily with themes of native art and native pride. As the seat of urban native Canada, Winnipeg has used murals to showcase the talent and culture of its very sizable native community. Of his mural figured above Charlie Johnston says:

“In one day, I had about 50 different people say something to me while I was working there. Everybody recognized him, knew him or was related to him. So talk about a Mural that ties into the community! It was really powerful in that respect. Here’s a person who comes from a hard background and yet, in our society’s eyes, has really made it. He’s an ‘A’ list aboriginal actor; he succeeded, he’s made the big time and he comes back to his community and lends his time which is now more valuable than ever before; speaking to people and children in his previous community about life issues like drug abuse and solvent abuse.”

Trudy Turner: “When Adam and I speak about the Mural, he’s choked and overcome with emotion. He’s such a humble guy. He’s a movie star without ego; he’s just a West End kid who happens to live in Hollywood.”

Charlie: “How far can a man go? I think that Adam Beach must be a man who dared to dream, for he has traveled far in his lifetime. With this Mural I hope I have brought him back to his roots by casting a reflection of his life and work on the community he grew up in. As I was working at that spot, with the incredible response to the Mural by those who know Adam, I really got to know his community in a very special way. As I worked on Adam’s portrait through the day, I would see the sun rise over the wall, cast high noon shadows on the bricks and finally turn the rich colours to a searing red and twilight before fading to black. And I thought, cool! This is poetry!”

Tags: adam beach, charlie johnston, graffiti, mural, murals of winnipeg, native pride, urban art, urban typography, west end, winnipeg

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 7:37 and is filed under ART and DESIGN, CULTURE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.