The Murals of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: 389 Graham Avenue

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The West Wall, the main portion of the Mural.

 



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Location: N side, back alley bet. Kennedy & Edmonton; West Face

Occupant: LA Collections

District: City Centre

Neighbourhood: South Portage

Artist(s):

Year: 1997

Sponsors: Take Pride Winnipeg!, D-7 Properties

In 1997, Tom Ethans had just begun his position as Executive Director of Take Pride Winnipeg. On his way to work one day, he encountered the almost completed artwork on this wall that had been commissioned earlier by Take Pride. He was alarmed at what he saw. Tom: "All of those helicopters were shooting gas and bullets at the monkey! And all those cars and trucks at the bottom were shooting bullets! And the people on the ground were all Devils! And the monkey had a large banana and he was an attacking the helicopters! It was a very simplistic Mural but I didn't want violence."

"When I came aboard as Executive Director I said to myself I can't have a Mural that represents that kind of thing because that's not what we are about. She did a great job, but we said to her were going to have to change it. And we paid her more money to change it. That fact got left out of the University of Manitoba story. I went to D-7 Properties (the other sponsor) and asked 'is this what you wanted' and they said 'no': they were upset with her but they hadn't told her. So we made the changes and I think it's kind of a funky Mural now."

The Mural today is an extremely upbeat quick look from a young person's perspective of some of the terrific things about Winnipeg. There was a great flood in Winnipeg that year, and the Flood Fighters had done such a great job that Ethans felt strongly that the Wall also pay a tribute to them. There are numerous other elements that the viewer is invited to discover. The artist included an ice cream truck to the artwork with a triple- decker ice cream cone. Ethans explains: "This represents my philosophy of life. Each of the ice cream scoops on the cone looks like a sideways 'D': Dedication, Determination and Discipline. You need those in order to succeed. Right? But if you have all those three things you still can fail without the cone, which is an upside down 'A' for Attitude."