{"id":18979,"date":"2017-11-15T17:06:57","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T22:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18979"},"modified":"2017-11-15T17:06:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T22:06:57","slug":"milestone-mural-to-be-unveiled-at-community-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/milestone-mural-to-be-unveiled-at-community-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Milestone Mural to be unveiled at community celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talented professional \u2013 and amateur \u2013 artists have been hard at work creating a lasting legacy and this Sunday the community at large will be able to take in the fruits of their labour as the Canada 150 Milestone Mural is unveiled outside the Aurora Cultural Centre.
\nThe vision of artist Ted Hamer, a professional muralist by trade, and the Centre\u2019s Community Arts Facilitator, the work is the product of \u201cthe imagination and creativity\u201d of hundreds of Aurorans who have had direct input on the finished product.
\nThe Milestone Mural Unveiling Free Community Celebration will take place this Sunday, November 19, from 1 \u2013 4 p.m. on the front lawn of the Aurora Cultural Centre.
\nWith opening remarks from Aurora \u2013Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill MP Leona Alleslev and Mayor Geoff Dawe set for 1.30, the mural itself will be formally unveiled at 1.50, followed by a reception and refreshments inside the Centre from 2 \u2013 4 p.m.
\nSince the start of the spring, Mr. Hamer, along with other members of the Aurora Cultural Centre team, have fanned out to various events throughout Aurora, along with numerous community hubs, armed with pencils, paper and a very simple question for those they encountered: What\u2019s your vision?
\nA simple enough question, but this was a question designed to get creative juices flowing as Aurorans brainstormed their vision of what Canada means to them and what it could be for the next 150 years.
\nThey were asked, What makes Canada great? What visuals, words or feelings come to mind when you hear the word, \u201cCanada?\u201d
\nThe collected answers fell into four key themes: Diversity & Inclusion, Truth & Reconciliation, Nature & The Environment, and Who We Are Today & Dreams of a Bright Future.
\nMr. Hamer was brought onto the project thanks to a Federal grant, which provided for a community arts facilitator. Once he was in place, he hit the ground running.
\n\u201cPeople have been very supportive,\u201d Mr. Hamer told The Aurora midway through the project.
\n\u201cPeople are very excited to have something like this in Town and they have given me almost every idea possible for the Town, going from the historical persons who have lived here, to nature. Nature is a big thing here and I am very happy with that.
\n\u201cThe other thing I wasn\u2019t aware of was Aurora\u2019s commitment to volunteerism and especially the commitment to newcomers. I didn\u2019t know how many Syrian families were sponsored here initially, and that is a really neat thing to want included on the mural.\u201d
\nHe likened Canada to \u201ca big village\u201d and this was the concept he wanted to translate into a mural form, which ultimately takes the shape of several interconnected maple leaves.
\n\u201cInstead of coming up with one cohesive image, I want people to tell their story of what makes Canada great. It could be a memory they have of Canada, of their lives in the country, but we will have these handouts where they can write or draw anything they want. From their ideas we will create a tapestry instead of a single image.
\n\u201cI have travelled around the world a lot and I have seen areas where people are separated and alone. We are kind of all condensed around the border and the lakes and we seem to have formed stronger communities. My image of Canada is kind of a big village.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talented professional \u2013 and amateur \u2013 artists have been hard at work creating a lasting legacy and this Sunday the community at large will be able to take in the fruits of their labour as the Canada 150 Milestone Mural is unveiled outside the Aurora Cultural Centre. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-16-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4W7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 17:59:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}