Local artist hosts community mural project to connect and reflect

Bail (pictured) said she hopes the murals allow participants to come together and share the story of Nanaimo. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

As an ambassador for BC Culture Days, a local artist is hosting a community mural event in the hope of bringing community members from all walks of life together.

Annabelle Bail is a mixed-media, multidisciplinary artist in Nanaimo who uses their art to express herself and reconnect with nature and their body. 

“I use, let's say, fine line work mixed with [a] kind of chaotic patterns to represent, the kind of overwhelmness [sic] that comes sometimes with the feelings that you experience as you're growing older as you're transforming,” They said. “Let's say the art that I was doing when I was in my early 20s versus now when I'm about to be 30, is so different.”

This year Bail is an ambassador for BC Culture Days which is a celebration of arts, culture, and heritage through free events in communities across the province. Bail said this allows people to share their culture and invite as many people as possible to come and experience it themselves 

They got involved as an ambassador for BC Culture Days after she connected with someone from the Nanaimo Art Gallery and did a couple of workshops for the gallery.

“I thought that it was going to be something really cool if I could build a project for the community here,” Bail said, “It's really important for me to volunteer and be active within my community and Nanaimo, so that was just going to be a good opportunity to do that. I applied and I got it.”

For their event, Bail is leading a community mural event on Sunday, September 22 at the Nanaimo Art Gallery from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The idea of creating a community mural came from doing the Commercial Street Night market in the past. 

“Last year I did this really cool painting live, one of the nights where I just painted something that was just coming up like, kind of in the moment–abstract, inspired by the people around me. As people were coming and gathering around me, I would just invite them to join in on the painting and add their little touch, their little mark,” Bail said. “It became a very interesting process where there were kids joining in–people, really, from all ages, people that had never done art, or people that were like artists and wanted to try a little something.” 

She said that the idea of a community piece really stuck with her after hearing how much people connected with the artwork.

“So I wanted to do it on a larger scale, and I feel like BC Culture Days giving me that platform to be able to do that and really invite people that not don't necessarily have a background in art also, but just to come together, to be able to share ideas,” she said.

Bail said they feel like art is something that is accessible for everyone to be vulnerable and connect with while coming together as a group to create something.

“They get the chance to do that with visual arts on this canvas all individually, but it's creating one cohesive piece that we're all going to be able to look back at and see that it's telling a story of Nanaimo,” she said.

After the event, the two murals will be on display at the downtown Vancouver Island Regional Library Nanaimo Harbourfront location until January. 

“I think that's what's going to be the power of this community mural, is that you don't need any background to do it,” Bail said.  “You just want to come here, have fun tell a little bit about yourself, tell a story through the art, and then see a connection with all the different people that are coming together and doing it together.”

Bail said the theme of the murals are home, safety, and joy.

“I think the feeling of home is something that we are all consistently redefining just as human beings,” Bail said. “There are so many people, even in Nanaimo, that are coming from, different countries, different spaces on the island and the beauty of of home is that you get to create it and that it does mean something different for everyone.”

She said she thinks everyone needs a little extra joy in their life. 

“Sometimes it's easy in a routine, in everyday life, to kind of forget about just the little things that bring us so much joy,” they said. “So taking a moment–like a couple of minutes to just reflect on that and then be able to think about images that would represent that I thought would be really cool.”

They said the feeling of safety is important and something everyone wants to foster.

“It's something hard sometimes to kind of pinpoint what the [sic] safety looks like, but if you just take a little moment and really think about all the things that are bringing you joy and happiness,” they said. “If you can somehow create a visual of it, I thought was [sic] going to be really powerful,”

Ahead of the mural event, Bail wrote a blog post for BC Culture Days discussing the stigma and barriers she has seen people have towards the downtown Nanaimo area.

She said she has consistent conversations with people who fear downtown and try to avoid going there.

“It's kind of sad because I've always seen the downtown of any city as the heart of that town, and as [sic] where there is a lot of, usually, there's a lot of resources, and a lot of, you know, fun like little cute shops and places where you want to mingle and get together and connect,” Bail said.

She said she believes it comes from a lack of resources as a lot of people are struggling with homelessness or addiction and it creates a perception of the area being unsafe.

“I think if everyone would instead come together and come up with a solution and try to bring more life into downtown and bring some projects and ideas,” Bail said. “If everyone can do that somehow, individually or collectively, and we all kind of take a little bit of responsibility to do that, that it would bring a lot of togetherness, instead of the stereotypes that something is kind of dangerous, which is to be honest untrue.”

They said that this mural project is a way for people to come downtown to see the good the downtown core offers.

“I think it just really comes down to the fact that we're all just people trying our best, and a community is the strongest when everyone asks compassion and empathy for each other, and when everyone is really helping each other out,” Bail said. “I think when we start losing a little bit of that empathy, we start creating division, on perception, without really knowing the story of certain people. It's just like we lose a little bit of that human side that makes like a community so great.”

Bail said they hope to give people a new way to meet someone new and connect with arts and culture through these murals.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.