This is the first time anyone asked me to lead a painting project like this….I was scared and excited. Exactly how I should be I guess. There is nothing like putting yourself out there, jumping off the edge and seeing how you land. That was going through my mind as I pulled together the design of the painting. I came up with several little options for Calgary Health Trust to choose from….all were generally the same, but with different colour choices.
These are the three little mock-ups I presented to them. Considering the outcome of the project you can guess which one they chose.
So many people came by to add their little bit. One Facility Manager refused to add anything to the painting, although he stopped by several times to see the progress. Finally I convinced him to paint a single dot. Sure enough, for the rest of that day he came by to point out his dot.
One fellow came and put a question mark right in the center of all the canvases…oh boy. I tried in vain to get people to dot around it to make it disappear….finally I had to take matters into my own hands and obliterate it with three big blue dots.
One participant even pulled out his credit card to do a bit of painting, which is a tool I use often, I was very careful not to go over the work that he had done. Later he came to see the progress and was so happy that is little bit was still there.
On occasion people would paint a heart, or a flower, or something representational, so I carefully added paint to take them to abstract, while still leaving a bit of that person’s work.
Thank you to all the ladies with Calgary Health Trust who were so excellent at pulling people in to help with the painting, and were so very supportive of the artwork. The Facilities Maintenance team at the building made everything much easier for us all, and provided those last-minute needs.
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