The City of Williams Lake has styled itself the
Mural Capital of the Cariboo and not without good reason. It was the local chapter of
Communities in Bloom which provided the initial impetus for a downtown mural project. The project was embraced by city council and got underway in (as best we can tell) 2002 with the first mural,
When Duty Calls, being placed on the fire hall in 2002. The artist was Dwayne Davis of
Davis Arts. Davis has been the artist for the majority of the downtown murals, which now total around 30, some inside but the majority outside.
One may check out all the downtown murals at the
Mural Tour.
Creative Hands fills the north wall of the
Central Cariboo Arts Centre on Borland Street. Covering a large portion of the north side of the building and wrapping around to cover a section of the east wall, the mural is quite noticeable. Another Dwayne Davis mural, this one done with help from his sons Steven Davis-Gosling and Destin Davis,
Creative Hands was painted in 2011. Reminiscent of the impossible paintings of
M.C. Escher, there is a bit of trickery going on in this mural, but it's not easy to spot.
Creative Hands
90 4th Ave. N., Williams Lake, BC V2G 2C6 Canada
Artist: Dwayne Davis, 2011
Funded by: Cariboo Central Arts and Culture Society and BC’s Community Tourism
Opportunities program via the Cariboo Coast Tourism Association, and with the support of the Cariboo Regional District and City of Williams Lake
About:
This is a mural where you can find new hidden details each time you look. Notice the sky is a river, look for where the water runs backward, find the impossible angles. There are hands throughout the design, creative hands holding and gasping and building. The large silhouette figure is abstract to portray an idea coming into the world, cradled by an artist’s hands. This mural shows ideas becoming art. It celebrates how an artist’s hands birth ideas that transcend the physical world.
Artistic Notes:
This mural was created using Dwayne’s usual method. He designs the image, then puts the image over a photo of the wall on his computer, then puts a graph on the actual wall and blocks in the design using the graph. However, Dwayne and Steven soon went “off book” with this creative process. An error during graphing made the main figure in silhouette far larger than intended. Happy with the effect of the error, the artists found themselves inspired to add faces in the cloud, include hidden animals, and delight in painting details that can only exist in an imagined world. Dwayne worked with his son Steven on this mural. The wording on the mural’s commemoration plaque is written by Steven.
From Downtown Williams Lake