Virden and area’s arts organization has launched an exciting new project to paint outdoor murals in Virden and three nearby towns.
Arts Mosaic is inviting proposals from professional and amateur artists to create four murals to celebrate Manitoba’s 150th.
Christa Milne, administrator of Arts Mosaic, says she’s been thinking about a mural project for some time, and this year, the pieces started to come together.
Now the arts group is at the stage of requesting proposals, including projected costs, from interested artists.
“Funding for the project will come from a number of sources. That will be determined once we receive some proposals and know the scope of each individual mural,” says Milne.
The size of the four mural “canvasses” varies widely from a small beverage hut on Reston’s golf course (the Watering Hole) to two entire walls of Oak Lake Community School.
In downtown Virden, the lane-facing wall of the Gopher Creek Coffee Company will get a mural, and in Elkhorn the entire front exterior of the Manitoba Antique Auto Museum will be painted.
Artists are being asked to base their design proposals around culture and history. The guidelines state each mural is to be a celebration of “the past, present and future of rural communities in southwestern Manitoba”, and artists are encouraged to use logos, symbols, people and landmarks from the area.
“It is our hope that each mural will be a celebration of what makes each community a vital part of this province... Each mural location is also an opportunity to highlight a further piece of history by way of location, impact on the community, etc.”
The deadline to submit proposals for the mural project is Nov. 7, 2019. The chosen artists will be notified in December with projects starting in spring of 2020 and finishing by November.
