The Art of Neighbourhoods
Mount Pleasant and Riley Park

Mainly For the Birds (1999)

Project Sites: Mt. Pleasant Community Centre (3161 Ontario St.), Simon Fraser Elementary School (100 West 15th Ave.), and Riley Park Community Centre (50 E. 30th Ave.); external mural panels

Artist/Facilitator: Pat Beaton

Project Partner: Douglas College Institute of Urban Ecology

Project Coordinator: Megan Stuart-Stubbs

Mainly for the Birds expanded the experience of bird watching into an opportunity to learn about and develop urban bird-friendly environments. Neighbourhood groups and local businesses along Main Street in both Mt. Pleasant and Riley Park were involved in raising awareness of local birds. Educational activities about bird habits and identification begun in classrooms at Simon Fraser Elementary led to several community projects: plantings, bird house building, and murals. With the assistance and leadership of the Institute of Urban Ecology and artist Pat Beaton, bird supportive habitats were planted at Riley Park and Mount Pleasant Community Centres, and a school yard greening project was undertaken at Simon Fraser School. Artist Pat Beaton also developed the mural concept, which involved community members in a series of workshops to create the mural panels composed of individually painted birds on backgrounds depicting supportive habitat elements.

Banners on Broadway
(1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, replacement scheduled for 2002)

Project Site: Broadway between Guelph Street and Commercial Drive

Artists/Facilitators: jil p. weaving, Pat Beaton, Spike McKinley

Coordinators: Jacqui Faubert, Megan Stuart-Stubbs, Spike McKinley

The brightly coloured banners that hang along this stretch of Broadway are hand-painted by residents of Mount Pleasant and Cedar Cottage. This street is heavily used by residents and commuters alike and the images beautify the streetscape and intervene in the sometimes negative media depictions of this part of the city. For each project, a committee of people who live and work in these neighbourhoods have identified a theme based on the issues of health, safety and community. The project artist is then responsible for developing a conceptual and compositional framework for the images. The neighbourhood drawing, selection and painting workshops which follow are forums for participants to exchange their thoughts on the theme and to create a set of images. Hung along the busy street, the banners form a widely accessible public expression of the community's thoughts and ideas.

Mount Pleasant Community Fence (1994)

Project Site: 700 block East 8th Avenue at Fraser Street

Artists/Facilitators: Merle Addison, Pat Beaton, Charmian Bullen, Haruko Okano

The Mount Pleasant Community Garden is a cooperatively-run garden that provides the opportunity for many apartment dwellers to grow their own food, flowers and medicinal plants. The garden is on park land and adjacent to other park space. A need was expressed by gardeners, neighbours and park users to identify and protect the garden area and make it attractive on a year-round basis. A community fence was conceptualized by artists who designed the overall specifications including the type of wood and size of pickets and the nature of the techniques that would be used on the pickets (i.e. carving and wood burning but no painted elements). Artists Pat Beaton, Haruko Okano, Merle Addison and Charmian Bullen then facilitated workshops with school groups, young parents and other artists in the neighbourhood to create the individual pickets and install the fence.

Welcoming Wall (1999)

Project Site: Riley Park Community Centre, 50 E. 30th Avenue; exterior wall at main entrance

Artist: Joey Mallett

Many approaches to Riley Park's community facility feature art. At the front entrance, the Welcoming Wall mural greets visitors with the powerful image of a tree grown from diverse individuals at play and leisure, a border of words in various languages echoing its message. Artist Joey Mallett developed the composition after extensive consultation with the Centre's many groups of seniors, youth and families, including ESL communities, who participated in art workshops and contributed drawings and ideas.

Also on site:

Mainly for the Birds (1999)

On the Centre's west side facing Ontario Street, the wave-shaped panels of Mainly for the Birds form a painted aviary facing the preschool playground (see above).

Community Labyrinth (2000)

The Community Labyrinth, a concentric tile mosaic, greets visitors to the Percy Norman pool. Designed by artist Judy McNaughton, area residents explored and created tile images from ideas of what community meant to them. The labyrinth follows a simple design radiating outward from a central core.

Go to:

Introduction to the Art of Neighbourhoods
Listing of Projects by Neighbourhood and Map
Contact Information

Champlain Heights	Marpole
Douglas Park	Strathcona & Hastings/Sunrise
Downtown Eastside	Sunset
Dunbar	West End
Grandview-Woodlands	West Point Grey & Kitsilano
Kensington/Cedar Cottage

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