UPDATE: The painted tiles have been assembled into a distinctly Langley artwork.
Almost 800 painters are needed between now and Wednesday at 5 p.m. to help represent Langley City in a country-wide mural project.
Langley is the 52 communities invited to be part of the Canada 150 Mosaic project.
As of lunch hour Monday, the project co-coordinators Rena Kanya and Karen Bishop had seen about 50 painters stop in, each painting a single tile with something that represents Langley or something personal for them.
Since starting with the project several months back, Kanya has seen all types of tiles painted. She’s watch people create completely abstract images, watched toddlers simply slapping paint onto a tile, and she’s watched professional artists create incredibly mini masterpieces of artwork.
Everything is welcome, she said, encouraging people to stop in a for just a few minutes and help develop the six-panel Langley mural.
There’s room for 864 tiles in the Langley segment, Bishop explained, noting a few were done up in advance. She figures they’ll need close to 800 more before they head to Summerland on Wednesday night.
“We have a ways to go,” Bishop added, encouraging everyone to stop in and contribute.
The overall mosiac or mural, will portrait a train – one car per community.
In Langley’s case, it will be a flatcar, and on top of it will be a replica of the portaging canoeist carving that stands in front of Timms Community Centre and City hall.
The Langley mural will be augmented with a few more natural features from the Nicomekl Flood Plain and Brydon Lagoon.
This country-wide project involves 150 communities from Vancouver Island east to Prince Edward Island, Bishop explained, noting that the team started travelling almost a year ago and hope to wrap up by the end of 2017.
Based out of Alberta, the team is currently on a B.C. leg of the trip, and expect to be back in Alberta next week.
Ultimately, she said, the Langley City mural will be erected in this community, with images of each train car strung together online for all to see.
When the project is finished, she said, there will be more than 100,000 tiles, and the train car will stretch about a mile long.
“It will be the biggest mural in the world,” Bishop said.
Langley painters are welcome to stop by the temporary art studio - set up in one of Timms Community Centre’s multi-purpose rooms.
The mosiac team will be there until 9 p.m. tonight (Monday, May 1), as well as from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3. Anyone wishing to book a specific time, can do so by calling 604-514-2940. But, Bishop emphasized that people are also welcome to simply drop in, too.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve painted before,” Bishop added. “If you’re a professional painter, we might give you something a little more challenging.”
For more information people can go online at: canadianmosaic.com.
