This sea and space themed mural is one of three murals put up around the city as part of the first ever Hub City Walls Festival. 

By Alex Rawnsley

MURAL FESTIVAL

Hub City Walls wraps inaugural festival, adding splash of colour to downtown Nanaimo

Aug 15, 2020 | 7:38 AM

NANAIMO — A trio of downtown spaces are now adorned with beautiful works of art, courtesy the first ever Hub City Walls festival.

Drastically altered due to COVID-19, organizers still pushed on with a modified version of their vision from before the pandemic.

Lauren Semple, festival producer, told NanaimoNewsNOW it was the right decision to forge ahead.

“(Festivals are) already tough to get launched and a lot of work, then you toss a pandemic on top of that. It was hard, we had to go through a lot of cancellations of events we originally wanted to have and change the amount of murals we were going to do.”

Three local artists took over space in the downtown core between Monday Aug. 10 and Friday, Aug. 14.

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Each were chosen from applications received earlier in the year and given a blank canvas to create their piece.

“The spirit of Hub City Walls is to really allow the artists to bring what they want to create to the table,” Semple said. “The designs that you see up were actually what the artist originally proposed…we didn’t change or guide or direct them in any way.

Kara Harrison made a sea and space-inspired mural on bare rock along Front St., behind Port Place Mall.

Her design centred around five otters, characters she has used in her pieces before.

“They always get a great reception, people have always commented they are happy and whimsical and really joyous,” Harrison said.

Taking the animals out of their normal sea environment and blending a mix of galaxies and stars was Harrison’s twist to help her mural stand out.

The biggest challenge for Harrison was working on a brand new substrate, bare rock, along with translating her sketches to a large scale canvas.

Her piece for Hub City Walls is significantly larger than anything she’s worked on before.

“I kept having to run across to the other side of the street to look at it to get the kind of perspective that other people were going to be seeing it instead of being right up close,” Harrison said.

Harrison added many people knew what she was doing and the Festival overall, but she had a few curious onlookers questioning her as she setup paints each day.

“I would wonder if somebody was going to stop me and think I was defacing this mural that I’m actually making, or are people going to be upset thinking I’ve just taken this wall.”

Hub City Walls plans to return in 2021 with a festival more in line with their pre-COVID vision and will scale back their plans as the health situation demands.

alex.rawnsley@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alexrawnsley