A stamp of approval for Niagara artist
Asked to create a mural for an outdoor art installation in downtown Niagara Falls, local artist Elaine Wallis turned to the history books — and her imagination.
She happened to come across a 1935 stamp featuring Niagara Falls and was intrigued by the image.
“I wanted to do something that connected Queen Street and downtown Niagara Falls with the tourism and hustle of the falls themselves,” the artist said.
“Then I realized that every postcard, every letter, every package that leaves Niagara Falls has to travel down Queen Street to the post office.”
Working on a tight deadline of about 30 days, she created a large mural featuring a replica of the stamp for Celebrate Our Downtown’s alley and laneway project.
The colourful mural, located on a building at the corner of Queen Street and St. Lawrence Avenue, recently won top honours in the historic image category of the Canadian Sign Association’s 2020 design competition.
“I’ve done murals for well over 20 years and I’ve never entered art into this type of competition before,” said Wallis, who operates Signature Sign & Image with her husband, Jeff, and son Mark. “I love the way it turned out.” After deciding to create the mural based on the stamp, she did a little research and discovered a 20-cent stamp in 1935 would not be for a letter or postcard, rather it would be used to send a package.
She decided to create fictional letters, like those people might have written around that time to accompany the packages, to use on the mural.
“I tried to imagine what packages would be sent to or from Niagara Falls in
1935,” she said.
“It would have been in the middle of the Great Depression and people didn’t have a lot of money, so I wrote a letter about a child receiving a Shirley Temple doll from a fairly wealthy aunt in Toronto who couldn’t be there for Christmas that year.”
Another letter involves a film canister left at a drug store by a George Stathakis, a daredevil who went over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel in 1930.
He suffocated inside the barrel, though his pet turtle, Sonny, survived unscathed.
In the letter to famed riverman Red Hill Sr., a pharmacist writes he hopes the canister may be of value so he can “recoup your payment for risking your
life to try to save him and so many others.”
“It’s a very pedestrian mural and people will walk past it, but I wanted it to also draw you in to read the stories,” Wallis said.
The mural is located across the street from Heart Niagara, which is a member of Celebrate Our Downtown.
“We know that art, events and culture will lift spirits, give people a sense of community and showcase artists,” said Karen Stearne, executive director of Heart Niagara.
“Outdoor art installations give us a reason to walk more, which improves health.”
Stearne said Wallis’s mural successfully incorporates art, history and story
telling.
The goal of the alley and laneway project is to improve the esthetic of underused areas by transforming them into outdoor art galleries and interactive spaces.
The project was carried out through a grant from the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund, which supports initiatives that engage the community with cultural and heritage-related ideas and activities.
The Sign Association of Canada represents and promotes the interests of stakeholders involved in the sign industry.