Mosaic mural could end up at new patient care tower

Penticton’s contribution to a national art project meant to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation will be given a place of prominence outside the Cleland Theatre — but it could be temporary.

Council on Tuesday directed staff to hang a mosaic mural, made up of hundreds of individual tiles, on the exterior wall of the Penticton Community Centre underneath the Cleland Theatre sign.

The $10,000 mural is one of 150 created across Canada in honour of this year’s anniversary. It’s roughly three metres square and depicts a train car, grapes and wine with Okanagan Lake and Munson Mountain in the background. Tiles were painted by community members last summer.

Lori Mullen, the city’s director of recreation services, said the wall at the community centre is the ideal spot for the mural, because it will allow people “to get up close and view the individual detail of each tile.”

However, there “might be an opportunity” to hang it in the new patient care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital when it opens in 2019, she added.

Coun. Judy Sentes said she’s been invited to sit on a committee that will help Interior Health come up with a public art policy for the new tower, but suggested the mural go up right away at the community centre.

“While I’m respectful of this concept (at the hospital) . . . I would hope we would get the mosaic piece up much sooner than three or four years,” she said.

Mullen confirmed the mural could be moved to the hospital at a later date.

The city chipped in $5,000 towards the cost of the project, while the Penticton and District Arts Council, Okanagan School of the Arts and Downtown Penticton Association each contributed $1,000. Council voted Tuesday to fund the $2,000 shortfall from its public art reserve.

Meanwhile, another well-known mural is now gone for good.

The massive rendering of grapes on a vine that once decorated the exterior of the Wine Country Visitors Centre was painted over in the fall by crews working on the new Cascades Casino Penticton, which is taking over the building.

Sentes said she and economic development officer Colleen Pennington lobbied Gateway Casinos and Entertainment to save the piece, which was painted by local artist Glenn Clark, but to no avail.

“The vision that the casino had in their new facility just did not include that,” said Sentes. “Just so people understand, there certainly was a lobby to save it.”