{"id":20400,"date":"2018-04-18T20:22:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T00:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20400"},"modified":"2018-04-25T21:22:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T01:22:14","slug":"mosaic-mural-leaves-colourful-legacy-of-canada-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mosaic-mural-leaves-colourful-legacy-of-canada-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosaic Mural leaves colourful legacy of Canada 150"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

If you were one of the 400 Aurora residents who showed off their artistic flair last year painting a small tile to be a part of a larger picture, there\u2019s no rush. You have the next 25, 50, 100 years to find where it ended up.
\nA lasting legacy of last year\u2019s Canada 150 celebrations, Aurora\u2019s Canada 150 Mosaic was formally unveiled by Mayor Geoff Dawe at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Thursday night, an unveiling which not only brought together local dignitaries but also many of the community artists \u2013 amateur and professional \u2013 who took a brush to paint in order to make it a reality.
\nAurora is one of 78 communities that took part in a cross-country mural project commemorating the sesquicentennial of Confederation last year.
\nThe eight by twelve foot mural was spearheaded by a group of local artists and volunteers \u2013 Christine Valentini, Claire d\u2019Aurore, Judy Sherman, Eva Folks and Eric McCartney \u2013 who not only brought the Mosaic opportunity to the attention of Aurora\u2019s Canada 150 Committee, but brainstormed various themes that could come together to speak to how Aurorans saw the community in the past, how they see it now, and how they see it in the future.
\nThey finalized the concept and the general layout, but it was up to an Alberta-based company which came up with the idea of a cross-country network of murals, to guide the process over the finish line.
\nIn a series of community painting parties last summer, participants were guided on the general colour themes their respective tiles should follow and how it might fit in with the whole.
\nThe completed product, featuring depictions of the Hillary House National Historic Site, the Aurora Train Station, and other landmarks, was not known to the local project leads ahead of last week\u2019s unveiling.
\nBut, before the Mayor did the honours, they eagerly shared their anticipation.
\n\u201cIt is very exciting to be here right now, now that it is finally here!!\u201d shared Ms. Valentini. \u201cI am looking forward to seeing it all together and hopefully we can step away far enough to see it!
\nAdded Ms. d\u2019Aurore: \u201cLike with any mosaic, you have to step back and get a full view. When it was first painted, we were looking at it up close. The team put it together, but we gave them the concept and Christine has worked diligently on it. It was a long journey and Christine started the journey. I am glad the whole town followed behind her.\u201d
\nIn his remarks before the big reveal, Mayor Dawe paid tribute to the \u201cdedicated group\u201d who got the ball rolling on the project.
\n\u201cIt is really a great synopsis of what our residents feel and think about our Town,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cIt is going to be a great legacy\u2026and it is a great opportunity for us to leave a legacy that talks about the history of our Town, how our residents feel and think of our Town.\u201d
\nThe mural\u2019s current location on the second floor of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex might not, as the Mayor noted, be its final location. While it will be the mural\u2019s home for the foreseeable future, other suggestions for a permanent location have been floated, including having it take pride of place \u2013 protected from the weather \u2013 in a completed Library Square.
\n\u201cNow, our next job is to play Where\u2019s Waldo?\u201d Mayor Dawe concluded before the artists in attendance, young and young at heart, excitedly came up to the mural to point out their handiwork.
\nAs they did, the volunteers who made it possible reflected on the project.
\n\u201cIt is amazing what the community can accomplish when they all get together, that they could all come up with something so beautiful,\u201d said Ms. Valentini. \u201cIt looks different from the original because [in the original concept] the sky was so plain, now it has all the images in it. This is the fun part when people come here and they will go and have to spend time trying to find theirs. It should be a lot of fun.\u201d
\nIn the end, that might be its lasting legacy as future generations come out to find the tiles their parents or grandparents contributed as a permanent tribute to this once-in-a-lifetime milestone.
\n\u201cI am so glad we have a legacy for our town and everyone who participated,\u201d said Mr. McCartney. \u201cit is a legacy for them and their family for decades to come, especially the people who participated, to say, \u2018Hey, my mom did that. My grandmother did that one.\u2019 They probably have pictures of what they did already, but when they come here and see it all together, picturing and pointing it out, it will mean a lot to that family.\u201d
\nAdded Ken Turriff, a member of the citizen-led Canada 150 committee: \u201cI think it is such a gorgeous mural and it will be great here, it will be great wherever it goes. I think it will be a legacy and be awe-inspired for many years and many generations to come, to see what we were thinking about, when people conceived of their individual times.
\n\u201cI would like to see what the people around for Canada\u2019s 200th can do to top this in terms of a legacy project going forward. This one will be around in another 50 years and 100 years, and I would be so interested to see what the next generation would come up with to represent Canada 50 years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 400 local artists collaborate on lasting “snapshot” of Aurora in 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20400","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\/2018\/04\/2018-04-19-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5j2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:55:09","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\/20400","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=20400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}