{"id":26674,"date":"2020-06-04T18:18:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26674"},"modified":"2020-06-11T23:36:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T03:36:48","slug":"downtown-murals-will-honour-frontline-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/downtown-murals-will-honour-frontline-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown murals will honour frontline workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Future wall murals in Aurora\u2019s downtown core will honour\nfrontline workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council has instituted a street wall mural program\nfollowing a motion from Mayor Tom Mrakas last week that is intended to not only\nbeautify Aurora\u2019s historic downtown but serve as a very public \u201cthank you\u201d to\nall frontline workers who are working tirelessly to keep us healthy, safe and\nfed during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making his pitch to Council, Mayor Mrakas said a mural\ncan create a sense of belonging and pride, while helping to reduce graffiti,\ntagging, and for neighbourhoods to \u201cshape their community through\nbeautification and shared project goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program will allow artists to create murals on Town-owned\nretaining walls along Yonge Street from Aurora Heights Drive to Kennedy Street,\nwith at least one mural earmarked to salute our frontline heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was something former councillor Jeff Thom and\nmyself had discussions in the previous term about looking at doing,\u201d said Mayor\nMrakas. \u201cThe motion didn\u2019t materialize last term, we just never got to it, we\nwere doing so many things. This term came along and I thought about bringing it\nforward. Just as I was about to bring it forward, we ended up in a state of\nemergency. I didn\u2019t think it was the right time [as we entered] the state of\nemergency to have the motion. After speaking with staff once again, I was\nencouraged to bring this forward at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought it was a great way to\u2026tie at least one of the\nretaining walls dedicated to our frontline workers, and when I say \u2018frontline\nworkers\u2019, I mean all of our frontline workers, everyone who has had a hand in\nhelping this economy continue and not fall apart while we\u2019re going through this\npandemic and, obviously, all of our healthcare workers and all of the\ntremendous work they have done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any retaining wall identified by staff for the mural\nprogram should also \u201cspeak to our community and have a tie to our community,\u201d\nhe added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a great opportunity for us to showcase our\ncommunity spirit and engage our local arts and culture community and have them\ncome out and do the incredible things that they do and create some incredible\npieces of art within our community, especially in our downtown core. It will\nspeak volumes to having that dedication to our frontline workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mayor\u2019s motion received the unanimous consent of\nCouncil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First to show their support was Councillor Sandra\nHumfryes, who seconded the motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me, this is just going to provide another legacy for\nthe Town of Aurora to remember this very unique year,\u201d she said. \u201cFrontline\nworkers are truly out there risking their lives day to day to keep us healthy,\nsafe, strong. For me, this is a really exciting initiative: I think it is going\nto lift spirits in our Town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar sentiments were offered by Councillor Rachel\nGilliland who said it was a great way to support local Aurora artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The arts] is one of the few sectors that have been hit\nreally hard and I think this comes at a really good time where we\u2019re coming\ntogether as a community and engaging with one another, supporting one another,\u201d\nshe said, noting the sheer number of occupations that are now considered\nfrontline workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spirit of community, she added, was a broad stroke\nthat allowed local artists to let their full creative brushstrokes fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to leave that creativity to the artists,\nwhich is great, and I can\u2019t wait to see what these program guidelines are and\nwhat the budget looks like, but I really do feel this is a really great way to\ncome out of this, find opportunities and celebrate with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas noted there are at least three \u201cmajor\u201d\nretaining walls that could be the subject of the new program, plus a few\nsmaller ones that might also fit the bill. At the end of the day, it will come\ndown to what is feasible and how the space can be used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner added that the condition of\neach retaining wall should be taken into consideration sooner rather than later\n\u201cbecause we wouldn\u2019t want to paint something, then have to fix the wall and\npossibly hurt what is painted there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas agreed: \u201cIt is amazing what artists can do, given that it doesn\u2019t matter what the size is of the canvas. There\u2019s anywhere from three to six locations that can be utilized, but we will have staff come back and tell us in a report.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Future wall murals in Aurora\u2019s downtown core will honour frontline workers. Council has instituted a street wall mural program following a motion from Mayor Tom Mrakas last week that is intended to not only beautify Aurora\u2019s historic downtown but serve as a very public \u201cthank you\u201d to all frontline workers who are working tirelessly to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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-26674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6We","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 06:55:06","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\/26674","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=26674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}