Cottage-goers will have a new sight to take in this summer as a much-loved community centre in Falcon Lake is getting a makeover.
An artist in the Whiteshell is looking forward to creating her first-ever mural honouring her community's passion for volunteerism.
"The community and I decided we are going to do something kind of build around a sentence they gave me, so the sentence is 'community built by volunteer," Kyla Quiring, the Falcon-Lake artist says. "I am going try to make a piece that really shows that it is based on volunteers and try to include the whole topography that we have here in the Boreal and the Shields."
She was nominated by community members and chosen out of four others to create the mural set to be located at the community centre off of Highway 1 for West Hawk, Falcon Lake, and Caddy Lake.
"It is pretty crazy, honestly," she says. "I am pretty much in shock."
Quiring says it is amazing to work with her community to create something for them.
Her parents and sister are also artists and will be helping her install the four panels of art onto the building. Her own family has been around for generations in the area. Her father, whose family immigrated from Germany to the area is Mennonite and her mother's French Métis roots are grounded in the area.
"A lot of my art comes from storytelling and connections because I think that on my dad's side it took them a lot of guts to come out here and they made a huge relation to the land," she says. "They had to reconnect with themselves."
This connection creates her own Métis-Menno identity, something she reflects in her work.
"We have lots of immigrants and we have lots of people who have been on the land forever that live in the community so I am hoping that we can bring both sides into the mural."
Quiring was chosen by her community to create the mural as part of Manitoba150 after their Wall-to-Wall art project expanded.
"We are delighted to bring art to more communities and at no cost to those communities. From Flin Flon, The Pas, and Norway House in the north to Gimli, Pilot Mound, Roseau River, and Falcon Lake in the south, communities across the province will encounter beauty and art on a daily basis, and have new opportunities for telling the story of their people, history, and culture,” Manitoba 150 co-chairs, Monique LaCoste and Stuart Murray say in a statement.
Two additional communities were chosen to be represented by local artists than the original five Mural150 communities.
Manitoba's Minister of Sport, Culture and Heritage Cathy Cox is excited to see the project expand into more communities than originally planned for.
"We strongly believe all people should have equal access to public arts and arts programming and we’re excited to see and hear the impact these murals will have in each community,” Synonym Art Consultation's co-founder and co-curator Andrew Eastman says in a statement.
Synonym was part of the selection process for the Wall-to-Wall project.
Sat, Apr 20, 9:30 AM
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