For the past few months, Nanaimo residents may have noticed dozens of hand-painted signs with positive messages popping up at bus stops, fences and telephone poles around town.
The works are part of the Signs of Hope Mini-Mural Festival, an ongoing effort organized by Nanaimoite Caleb McIntyre to build community and to “inspire wonder, optimism and compassion.”
“The whole aim behind these signs is to inspire people and to show people in the city that other people care about the space and, ultimately, encourage people to realize that they have an influence on what their city looks and feels like … and they don’t just have to leave it to people in high levels and city bureaucracy and government,” he said. “Regular people can choose and influence how they want their neighbourhoods to develop.”
McIntyre said he had long wanted to work on a collaborative outdoor art project with an element of “tactical urbanism” that would have a lasting impact, so in August he organized the first Signs of Hope “painting party” at Diana Krall Plaza.
He supplied the paints and wooden canvases and invited passersby to join in.
“We just plopped down right in the middle of it with a table and a bunch of sheets on the ground and just gave people free canvases and free paint and people from all over the community came,” McIntyre said, adding that the event drew a “super diverse” crowd.
“We had exchange students from Germany and it was their first day in Nananimo and it was the coolest thing they could find, we had parents with kids coming to make paintings together, people of all ages came out, people who had never painted before… We even had members of the homeless population come and join us.”
After a successful first event, McIntyre was motivated to turn the festival into a monthly occurrence. He said subsequent painting parties have attracted greater number of painters and he’s frequently asked when the next event will be held.
McIntyre said most of the signs have been installed in Nanaimo’s south end. He said the Signs of Hope team usually targets spaces that are “a bit dark and dingy” and unwelcoming that would benefit from the addition of some public art.
He said the project has “really taken off” and at this point he’s just facilitating the process.
“I know that there are people out there who are making [signs] on their own time and installing them in their own neighbourhoods, which is what I’d hoped,” he said. “I’d wanted it to kind of just become viral in the city and just take on a life on its own, so that’s kind of where we’re at now.”
For information on upcoming painting parties, to get involved or donate, click here.
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