During economic times in which cultural funding is not always enough to allow for special projects, two Centretown community centres came up with the perfect alternative: trading art for art.
When Pray Bhindi, program co-ordinator of the McNabb Community Centre, suggested that H’Art of Ottawa create a public mural for the centre’s lobby, Lin Rowsell, director of the art organization, jumped at the chance.
“When Pray contacted me with the idea, I agreed right away,” says Rowsell. “I thought ‘Yes, it’s perfect!’ ”
H’Art of Ottawa is a unique art studio in which people with developmental disabilities can express themselves and give back to the community through art.
Bhindi came to Rowsell with the idea that H’Art of Ottawa could create a mural for the lobby of the community centre in exchange for some pottery lessons for the artists.
“What happened was that I was looking at our lobby and there wasn’t anything there,” Bhindi says. “It was a pretty boring lobby.”
He says remembered that H’Art had used their facility to display some artwork in the past and approached them with the idea of creating a permanent public display.
The mural that was created is the first piece of public art that H’Art of Ottawa has completed.
“It’s very exciting for the artists because not only did they create their own painting, they had to work together to create the piece of art,” Rowsell says.
The mural is made up of three different panels that were worked on by three groups from H’Art of Ottawa. They all display beautiful scenes of the outdoors, with a giant bright sun, butterflies, birds, and flowers.
The murals are full of colour and energy and one scene flows into the next.
Although both groups were very excited about the project, there was also the issue of the cost.
“All organizations are strapped for money, so we just had to brainstorm and come up with a way to work around it,” says Bhindi.
The solution the organizations found was to initiate a trade. H’Art of Ottawa had their artistic abilities to offer and the McNabb Community Centre could offer one of its many recreational programs for the artists to participate in, such as pottery lessons for the artists.
All those involved say they thought that the collaboration between the two centres was a huge success.
The murals and pottery were unveiled on Oct. 2 at the McNabb Community Centre with a huge turnout to witness the event.
“Everyone was here,” says Janet Paterson, program co-ordinator at the McNabb Community Centre. All the friends and family of the artists came to the unveiling, as well as supportive community members. “It was packed in here!” she says.
The mural is not yet on display but Paterson says it should be up very soon.
Rowsell says she could not have been happier with the results of the art-for-art project.
“This project allowed the artists to contribute to the community in a really meaningful way,” she says. “It’s important for them to be recognized as artists within the community.”