A colourful story of a raven, bathed in shades of green, blue, orange, and yellow, is now a part of a little urban garden in the heart of the city.
Artist K.C. Hall, from the Heiltsuk First Nation, was commissioned by the Fraser River Indigenous Society to paint the mural measuring about 16 feet long and about seven feet high.
Ginna Berg, executive director of the Indigenous society said they had contractors put reclaimed boards up on a pergola in the garden to create an art wall amongst the vines and greenery.
Hall, who is originally from Bella Bella, but raised in East Vancouver, where he is now based out of, spent the day on Tuesday, June 23, and on Thursday, June 25, to design and paint the mural.
He said he was only given the dimensions of the wall and a photo to go on.
“I just visualized from there,” explained Hall, coming up with a concept for the story of the mural.
Hall drew a mock up on his iPad for reference, but came out and started the mural freehand.
The mural tells the story of how the world was just ocean and rock until the raven created plant life, foliage, the forest, grass, trees, and leaves, explained the artist.
There was no life except for the raven. And then one day he is flying around the world and he sees one spot on the rocks that has a little bit of wet soil. So, the raven flies down and plants his feet in it, he explained.
“His veins start going through the soil and the dirt and they crack through the rocks. And, from that point, trees and grass and plants all start forming – from him. Or from ‘The Raven’ because the raven in our history is the creator of all things necessary,” explained Hall.
He noted that he wanted to create a piece that fit with the garden space with a beautiful story behind it.
Berg first discovered Hall’s art pieces on the streets of Vancouver, before she recently watched a demonstration by the artist at the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art.
Hall was using spray paint to paint designs on a big plywood board. He would paint one design, then spray over it with another design, again and again, said Berg.
“It was just so layered, and interactive,” said Berg, with a lot of movement.
“He was just going with his emotion and his thoughts and his gift,” she said.
Then when the society received funding for an art piece, she immediately though of Hall and what his style of art could add to the urban garden, on Selkirk Avenue, just east of 223 Street.
Hall started his artistic journey in jewelry carving and Northwest Coast formline, a traditional two-dimensional design developed by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
His silversmithing instructor allowed his students to discover their own artistic styles, said Hall.
“It gave me the freedom to immediately open the door to adding more contemporary things and breakaway from the traditional side of it and add my own little flair to it,” he said, especially when he started taking large-scale mural painting seriously in 2018.
Since then he has created more than 65 murals in Vancouver and the surrounding areas – the largest one measuring 127 feet long to 14 to 17 feet high at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre.
Hall doesn’t like to plan out his pieces in advance. If it was up to him he would design and paint each one on a whim.
“I don’t want it to be too forced,” he said.
He didn’t even choose the colours for the piece in Maple Ridge until the morning he arrived.
And, he also doesn’t have a name on the piece yet. He is waiting for that to manifest itself in some way
Hall said the importance of mural art is far reaching. They tell stories of cultures in lands they have never seen before, he said. And, they bring colour an life into areas that seem institutional, bland, and stark.
“Seeing murals going up everywhere is amazing because it’s other people’s minds of colour just being splattered on the wall.”
The mural can be seen from the street or during community events where all are welcome to visit the garden.