I get to enjoy this mural everyday on my way to work along the Adanac bike route.

Community art is one of those things that makes a huge difference in adding color and vibrancy to a neighborhood. One of my favorite things about the Commercial Drive area is the abundance of it on walls, alleys and tucked in corridors almost everywhere you look. Not only does community art serve to promote local artists, its often also pretty participatory (allowing everyone – rich and poor – to take part in it everyday).

A good example of this is the recently completed Eastside Mural Project, which brought together 60 local artists, students and  community members to create roughly 8,000 sq. feet of murals all over the Commercial Drive and Strathcona communities. Here’s what mural project was all about according to its organizers:

A quartet of four community-based murals sponsored by Britannia Community Services Society and coordinated by Richard Tetrault has been painted in East Vancouver this summer, marking Britannia High School’s Centennial and celebrating its place within the community. These public murals express some of the history, traditions and contemporary life in the surrounding neighbourhoods.  Strathcona, Commercial Drive and Hastings/Sunrise are dynamic parts of Vancouver, and home to hundreds of artists, arts events and festivals. These include the annual Heart of the City Festival and Eastside Culture Crawl. This set of murals explore the rich qualities of this area, drawing from events, individuals and narratives found within this community.

Talk about colorful!

Community murals like these have the added benefit of creating community landscape that’s less likely to be defaced by graffiti and tags (not that there’s anything wrong with artistic graffiti). In fact, part of the funding for the whole project came from the East Van Community Policing Centre.

If you’re interested in learning more about the public art of East Vancouver, make sure to check out the Eastside Mural Project’s website and take part in their upcoming art cycle (taking place from 2:15 till 5:00PM on October 3), which will be led by Richard as well as Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

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