It took more than a year to bring it all together, but Penticton’s Canada 150 Mosaic is now up for public display.
The mosaic which uses about 400 tiles to form a mural of iconic Penticton symbols like a wine bottle and a giant peach, was unveiled in its new home outside the Penticton Community Centre last week.
“I think we need to celebrate arts and culture a lot more, so this is a great way of having people be reminded of how special Penticton is,” said Mayor Andrew Jakubeit.
Jakubeit’s own contribution is a tile painted with a parasailer, one of those created in the summer of 2015 by community residents.
“If you see the one in the top right-hand corner that looks like it was painted by an eight-year-old, that’s actually my painting,” said Jakubeit.
Penticton was chosen to be one 150 communities across the country participating in the Canada 150 Mosaic Tile Project with artists Phil Alain, Paul and Lewis Lavoie. The concept is a mural including all provinces and territories, over 80,000 paintings and 150 individual murals that when united will form one gigantic mural mosaic. The mural, if ever connected would be over 365 meters wide (4 football fields) x 2.5 meters high (8 feet).
Getting the tiles painted was just part of the process, according to Allison Markin, chair of the Arts, Creative and Cultural Innovations Committee.
“As anyone who is creative knows, it is a challenge to create something by committee. We went through a number of iterations,” said Markin. The committee interacted with Lewis Lavoie to come up with symbols and ideas iconic of Penticton that he could use the tiles to incorporate in the mosaic.
“Eventually, he came up with this and we felt it incorporates just about everything we wanted to fit in. It came together really nicely,” said Markin.
Velma Bateman was one of the artists who contributed a tile. She chose to create an image of the memorial at Vimy Ridge.
“My dad was at Vimy Ridge. That’s where they say Canada was born as a nation … so I thought that was the right thing for me to do,” said Bateman.
Jakubeit said there will be a lot of events to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary, and unveiling the mosaic was a great way to kick off the year, and a lasting reminder.
“Years down the road, you can look back and admire the artwork, and if you contributed, you can look with a sense of pride,” said Jakubeit.