Ten new murals in festival’s spotlight
Street-mural festival returns for low-cal season with 10 new works being painted on Edmonton walls over the course of the summer
You try arranging 40 new murals in two years and see what happens!
Annaliza Toledo and Trevor Peters of Rust Magic International Street Mural Festival did just that over the past two summers — including bringing legendary New York City graffiti artists STASH and Wane One COD for speaking events, throwing a number of sweet street parties and even opening their own gallery to show off their local-to-international artists’ work. No biggie, right?
“Honestly,” Toledo laughs on a Jasper Avenue patio, “we are still burned out from the past two years. With the help of just a few volunteers, Trevor and I have taken on pretty much all the work: curating, the hands-on work of priming walls, all the logistics, hosting artists.
“Basically, throwing a festival over 10 days, compacting 20 artists here at once, is just not sustainable.”
So for a low-cal Rust Magic 2018, no programming, no party — and just 10 project-by-project murals happening in succession instead of a big heap of simultaneous spaghetti.
To celebrate their stealth version of the festival, three murals are already up on the walls — including Okuda San Miguel’s six-storey Welcome to the Black Rainbow Lake, which the pair primed pink and black while up on the green lift before the Spanish artist arrived.
Full disclosure, I was involved curating this, and it was just the best sort of circus.
But as Toledo explains, “We really want to give our full attention to each of the artists and each of the murals happening.”
Peters says, “When we did it we wanted to bring people from other cities and give them a good experience of Edmonton. Managing 20-plus walls, we didn’t get to do that — take them to the river valley, the best restaurants.
“We had to shake it up a bit.” Throughout the summer, the next seven murals will show up on Edmonton walls — including a huge score starting Tuesday by Valencia’s PichiAvo, a duo known for mixing depictions of classical Hellenistic and Roman sculpture with stunning modern graffiti style.
“We’re still doing half international, half local artists,” said Toledo.
One of the homegrown is the phenomenal Jill Stanton, who recently finished a wraparound mural on the side of Varscona Theatre before signing her name on her second completed Edmonton outdoor permanent artwork: No Beginning / No End. This beauty lives on the north side of Apple Dental Care at 10803 124 St.
A long blue wall with an orange and white snake with no head or tail, numerous people on Instagram claim this is their favourite of her works.
Stanton had noticed this wall some time ago.
“I’ve been looking at it because those diamonds in the wall are really interesting. When I got it for the festival I was really excited, and wanted to do something with them.”
The diamonds, the proximal farmers market and the challenge of the long wall summoned a snake in Stanton’s imagination. Her own history sealed the deal.
“A bunch of years ago now, because I’m an old person now,” she laughs, “I did an apprenticeship in Duncan, B.C., learning how to run a 10-acre market organic farm. One of my jobs was to get the strawberries ready for the farmers market."
They’d head out with baskets Friday night, “and in amongst all those strawberries was where little garter snakes like to hide. You’d see bits and pieces, not necessarily a whole snake, in between — part nestled in these leaves and vines.”
Stanton had also lost touch with her farming mentor, who has since died — so she sees it as a bit of a tribute.
As for the snakes, she called them “guardians” the first time I visited her.
“They’re not violent guardians, but sort of protecting the patch. And Cindy Neufeld, the dentist who owns the building, really likes them because they symbolize health. There’s even a snake in the dentistry logo, so there’s all kinds of symbolism going on.”
OK, so if Stanton’s is the second this year, the third is on the east side of Habesha African Market at 10418 107 Ave. This one is by Calgary’s Nasarimba — Rachel Zaraida and Mikhail Lajeunesse. Earthy sunset colours dominate this beautiful abstract landscape, and Zaraida takes us through its origin story.
“This piece specifically was designed through paper cut out, referencing Matisse a little bit. Once we found out where this was in an area where there hasn’t been any new murals at all, we just wanted something bright and colourful to bring positivity.
“And it’s been such a positive response from the community.
In the past year-and-a-half, the collective painted 25 wall murals, including a number in Mexico and across Canada. Mural festivals in Winnipeg and Calgary, she says, “are becoming a sweet little community. Everyone’s so supportive, getting each other gigs.”
This has always been one of Rust Magic’s goals, which besides 50 new murals around here, means the experiment is working.
I’d pulled up on my bike just as Lajeunesse sent out his last hisses of spray-paint in the top corner, and from within the building emerged Habesha’s owner, Semere Berhane, grinning widely.
“I love it, I’m so excited,” he said. “It’s just beautiful — this neighbourhood needed life. I would love to see more of these.
“You know how many people stand talking like you and me in front of this art?”
He asks his six-year-old daughter, Grace, what she thinks about the new wall.
“I like it!” she sings.
And what does she like about it most? She thinks about it for a second, then yells, “Everything!”