The Murals of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Murals

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'Northern Portugal'.

Location: NW corner Wall & Sargent; East Face

Occupant: Casa do Minho Portuguese Centre Inc.

District: West End

Neighbourhood: Sargent Park

Artist(s): Mandy van Leeuwen, Jennifer Johnson Pollock

Year: 2002

Sponsors: West End BIZ, Take Pride Winnipeg!, Neighbourhoods Alive! (Manitoba)

In 2002, the West End BIZ was responsible in sponsoring several exciting new Murals in the West End. Late that year, Trudy Turner (Executive Director) approached Mandy van Leeuwen and Jennifer Johnson Pollock to paint one last wall, this one for the Casa do Minho Portuguese Centre. Until recently, the West End did have a beautiful Portugal themed Mural (at Sargent & Sherbrook, see the 'RestInPeace2002' section of this website), but this outside wall was lost due to expansion of the building. The subject of the new Mural is the Minho Province of North Western Portugal.

Jennifer: "Mandy did a lot of the preliminary work for this one, because I was getting married. I sent out my husband (a painter) to prime the wall! Every scene in here has something different- a different time of the day, a different area of Portugal. They're all areas of Northern Portugal that was important to the Centre, that's where they were from. And they wanted these dancers in the middle to be a highlight of the mural because that's one of the things they do there at the Centre."

Mandy: "We had a meeting with the Centre's committee at the wall. They helped supply some of the photos of landscapes to refer to. This wall was 20 feet longer than at our previous site (684 Main), and it was already getting very close to the end of the season and this was another really big project so they recognized the challenge and got really excited and pumped about it. Originally we were only going to do (a little over half) the wall (the whole left side of the final rendering up to and including the first 4 of the dancers on the checkered floor), but some additional funds were found almost at the last minute that enabled them to take on the entire wall. They decided that it would look better if we did the whole thing, and they were right!"

"We used a transparency. We projected most of it on. Some of it we did a little more freehand. The night scene, for instance is completely freehand. But you can only accomplish so much with projection. A lot of it you trim and reshape so you can make it the way you want it."

Jennifer: "The night scene was the fastest one to do. It's all dots, black background and a bit of shading. It just came together really well and was something different than anything we had done before. We wanted all the images to have a flow, one into the next. We didn't want to have it sectioned EVEN considering the doorways and windows and the entranceways as well in there. Another reason why this was very different for us was that there were a lot of landscapes. I learned a lot; I think both of us did, and we both seemed to pick up the feeling and the flow together very quickly. We also used some of the colour concepts we learned at our previous project (684 Main). We just really enjoyed it. After every portion was finished it felt like a new mural."

Mandy: "We have a series of patterns going on in our murals as well we like to use a lot of patterns to add an epic feeling to our work. The checkerboard (dance floor) is new for us to use, but we had given thought to this type of pattern previously and finally here was the perfect opportunity to use it for the dance floor. And we wanted to make it dreamy as well so we added a night sky into it. You look into it and it's more mystical."

Jennifer: "Look at the last dancer. You see the idea here is that she's peeling back paper or a curtain to reveal the next section of the Mural. On the other side (the first dancer) you can also see the fold coming back, pulling back the fold and the landscape is behind them. The reason we have the moon in here is that they decided they wanted this window painted over and we needed something in that area."

Mandy: "They provided a picture of the archways (last panel) but I made the rest up and put a lake scene behind it. The Cathedral (Santa Lucia Cathedral in Viana do Castelo) was a landmark in that area. They felt it was very important to have that included so we decided to do it that way. We were provided with a computer scan picture and it was really hard to make out, it was very dark, it was more like a silhouette photograph so we did the best we could to make out the details out of it. Although the surrounding landscape is not precisely the same landscape, it is high on a similar hill overlooking water just like this."

Jennifer: "This project was also different because we worked when there was snow on the ground. It was the coldest October in Winnipeg in over 100 years. We literally had to shovel snow (see Photo 6) to finish painting."

Mandy: "We build a 'mural house' (also known as a hoarding). We put insulating tarp around our 20 feet of scaffolding, and we had 2 propane heaters. With the propane heaters there was enough heat to keep the wall warm inside there and to keep us warm enough as well. There were some days where the wind got through and it got cold a little bit. We probably spent most of our time being high on propane here. We were nutty. We were singing with our paintbrushes all the time, just being goofy, and having a great time. We had a little radio in there and all our paint. We were hitting our heads on the scaffolding and laughing for silly reasons."

Jennifer: "I got sick quite a few times. Mandy was laughing at me while I was trying to recover my composure from being sick."

Mandy: "We did try our best we could to keep some fresh air coming though, but realized it's a bit dangerous. I'd probably be a little hesitant to do it again like that because you don't know how much that's affecting you really. It's a gas that you might not sense what it's done to you fully. I'd rather finish a little sooner in the year. But I can definitely stand back and appreciate the experience from now."

Building a hoarding like this also added to their overhead- Mandy figured it was about 15 dollars per day per tank, which can become an expensive proposition.

Jennifer: "Two tiers of the scaffolding fell over. And then when they were putting it back into place, one of the jacks fell down and crushed my finger."

Mandy: "The wheels on the bottom are only pegs 6 inches into the scaffolding, so if the wind picked up the scaffolding from the tarps it would then act as a big kite and it would fall down so we would have to fix it. One morning we came and the scaffolding had fallen over. So we had to pick it up- it was difficult, heavy and awkward but we somehow managed to do it ourselves."

Jennifer: "Trudy Turner (West End BIZ) came by to see us one day and locked the keys in her car. There's a garage next door so we went to get a jimmy tool because her car was running but her keys were locked in it. But we couldn't get in it and then the jimmy got stuck in the door and we couldn't get that out. Her husband had to come all the way from St. Vital to bring her keys. Trudy was absolutely amazing to work with. Mandy and I have a lot of respect for her. She reaffirmed a lot of stuff for us in this business: she kept her word on things."

Maria Alpuim (who sits on the executive of Casa do Minho's board): "I think it was a wonderful job they did with the wall. I was amazed as to how the artists incorporated the various scenes so seamlessly. They did a far better job than I was expecting! We are very happy with it."