I arrived at the Centre at 10:45 ... while I waited for my fellow walkers, I made a fresh pot of coffee, cleaned the boiling kettle and the stove ... at 11:15 I called Linda and coaxed her out of her lazy pajamas to join Flora and I for a walk along Commercial Drive to check out the wall murals ...
As a volunteer at the Commercial Woodlands Policing Centre, I was given a book prepared by the City of Vancouver, which contained color photos of some of the wall murals painted by graffiti artists of "Restart", a program sponsored by the City, the Police Department and local business associations to encourage street artists to create scenic murals instead of tagging walls and vehicles ... since the inception of the program's "Spread the Paint" campaign in 2002, graffiti vandalism has dropped by 85 percent and, by 2005 (when the booklet was published), 150 wall murals had been painted ... the City will be publishing a second edition covering paintings done from 2006 to 2010...
When Linda arrived at noon, she told us she had just passed a lane way between Parker and Napier where a group of some twenty young people wearing gas masks were spray painting sections of an outlined wall mural of wildlife including cameos of a tiger, a lion and a panda on a background of mountains, rivers and valleys ... two city police were recording the event (video)... on the end wall was an iconic Haida water bear being painted by a young friend of Flora's ... Flora is First Nations, a court worker and advocate for aboriginal youth gone astray of the law ... she helps the young people with the legal process, referring them to appropriate social agencies as needed ... her picture was taken spray painting a patch of the icon ...
Our walk continued down the Drive where Linda, who is Italian, met several of her countrymen ... one of them, Carmello, a trim looking slight man with sleek hair and long tailored black coat was wearing large gold custom made rings on every finger ... he kindly agreed to have his photo taken with Linda in front of a mural at 4Th Avenue ... we ended up at JJBean cafe for a hot drink before continuing on our way down the Drive, across Broadway to East 11Th where I parted company and walked home ... Linda and Flora did some local shopping before going back to their respective residences ...
All in all, it was a very satisfying, relaxing day, more a stroll than an earnest walk ... but we enjoyed ourselves, got some fresh air, met some new people ... and that's all that matters.
Contributor Virginia
No comments:
Post a Comment