A new mural, which took four years from the original idea to completion, was unveiled at the Vancouver Island Regional Library in Nanaimo on Friday. Artists Lys Glassford (left) and Lauren Semple (right) pose with their completed work. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

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NANAIMO — A splash of bright, creative colour has been added to the city’s downtown.

A new mural was unveiled on Friday, Aug. 25, at the Vancouver Island Regional Library on Commercial St., facing the Diana Krall Plaza.

Created by local artists Lys Glassford and Lauren Semple, the mural, “The Bookshelf”, was born from an initial concept decided alongside library staff who wanted to represent their vast catalogue. They ultimately settled on 13 genres represented in 13 books on a shelf.

“When they decided on the bookshelf mural design, we went through a bunch of different designs, ideas and they decided on the bookshelf,” Semple said. “Because you can’t ask staff and all these librarians to decide on 13 books, that was the impossible task, there was no way they were going to pick 13 books.”

Work began in July and took roughly a week for the duo who make up “Humanity in Art”, a group founded by Glassford with the goal of “rehabilitating” blank walls in urban, public spaces on Vancouver Island with large, colourful murals.

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The design features interpretations of different book genres, completed with different easter eggs and is meant to help brighten and rehabilitate urban spaces by adding large art pieces.

13 different book genres were chosen to represent the vast literary library available behind. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNOW)

It was a challenging commission for Semple and Glassford, who had to battle the elements.

“We would roll in early, early, we’d get here like 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. before anyone else was,” Semple said. “We’d get here for sunlight, we were trying to beat the heat so a big thing that cuts down our painting time in the summer is heat more so than anything else.”

The pair also had the focus of making it somewhat interactive.

“We wanted to try and create as much community engagement as we could through the use of bright colours then we have our sci-fi genre where you can pose underneath the spaceship,” Glassford said.

The mural was made possible thanks to a grant from the Canada Healthy Communities Initiative by Community Foundations Canada and The Nanaimo Foundation.

Both Glassford and Semple are already onto their next project with the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner office with a design centred around anti-hate messaging.

Semple added they’re still looking for space to paint a new Nanaimo Pride mural, after the original one on Wallace St. was vandalized in 2021.

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