Community Art

Creating Community Art

In the summer of 2022, the District of Sechelt commissioned artist Emily Gray to transform our Hackett Park amphitheatre seating into a vibrant community-made public art piece. The result was the beautiful Weaving Patterns & Rhythms mural, created with the help of over 100 community volunteers. Public painting session were held in the summer over several days, and residents of all ages joined in the fun of contributing to the mural.

Weaving Patterns & Rhythms was developed as a community-engaged public art mural with the goal of creating a welcoming and vibrant seating area for a newly built accessible outdoor stage & amphitheatre at Hackett Park in Sechelt, BC. This aim of the project was to beautify the seating at the outdoor amphitheatre, while building connections between community members and encouraging community participation. It was created through a collaborative process to foster community pride and connection with the park.

Layered on top of all the woven designs are words from the shashishalhem language, selected through a language workshop hosted by shishalh Cultural Ambassador kwayimin Andy Johnson, and shashishalhem Language Teacher Rita Poulsen.

About the Artist

Emily Gray, emilygray.ca

• BFA, Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2010)
• BEd, University of British Columbia (2021)

Emily Gray specializes in painting murals, sculpting in ceramic, and creating scenic art for the film industry. Emily’s art practice is inspired by nature and her experiences growing up “off grid” on her family’s oyster farm located on the Sunshine Coast of BC. Being creative was her response to being surrounded by boundless natural beauty with relatively no distractions. Gray continued to hone her passion for art when she was offered a summer job painting a mural under the mentorship of artist Ken Walters in 2004. This quickly sharpened Emily’s trajectory to pursue a career in the arts, and by 2010 she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Gray has been consistently painting murals since 2004 in Vancouver and surrounding communities in BC. Community-based art has been a recurring theme in Emily Gray’s murals; her mission is to empower people through the creative process. Emily’s style is a mixture of vibrant illustrative realism, inspired by the West Coast of British Columbia. Gray creates dynamic compositions that allow viewers to flow through the paintings and experience art on a larger scale.