Black Dot Diary

Land & Sea Murals at Ogden Point Break­wa­ter, Vic­to­ria, British Colum­bia. Photo by Chris Holt Pho­tos, http://​www​.chrisholt​pho​tos​.com

I took a walk with my fam­ily on Thanks­giv­ing Day and, under a dra­mat­i­cally dark Octo­ber sky, saw for the first time the spec­tac­u­lar murals on the break­wa­ter at Ogden Point in Vic­to­ria, BC. With the addi­tion of the murals, the old grey break­wa­ter has become majes­tic. It doesn’t com­pete with its coastal back­drop but appears to emerge from it.

Graced with these murals, the break­wa­ter spans out into the sea like a dream unrav­el­ling. The murals depict images of local chiefs and BC’s Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Steven L. Point, and images of land and marine life. The meet­ing of land and sea life in these murals is fit­ting, for the places where land meets ocean (called bio­mes or life­zones) are nurs­eries for all kinds of life. They are rich with nutri­ents, bio­di­ver­sity and pos­si­bil­ity. So it is with these murals.

Accord­ing to the Times-​Colonist, the eye-​catching mural pan­els are designed by local First Nations artists. They are part of an artis­tic project that will lead to 100 pan­els being mounted on the land­mark sea­side walk­way. The first pan­els were cre­ated by Coast Sal­ish artists Butch Dick Songhees First Nation) and Dar­lene Gait (Esquimalt First Nation) and a team of Abo­rig­i­nal youth.

“The spir­its of our ances­tors live on in those of us who try to bring dig­nity and nobil­ity back to our peo­ple through hon­esty, gen­eros­ity and respect,” said Dar­lene Gait in a news release.

I am hardly qual­i­fied to com­ment on anyone’s art; I can only speak to the way these murals made me feel. Look­ing at the them, I did expe­ri­ence a sense of the noble. I’m not talk­ing about noble as in the Euro­pean lords and ladies, but of some­thing older and more pow­er­ful, some­thing dis­tinctly of this place and time — per­haps the spirit of the sea itself.

Tags: breakwater, British Columbia, Butch Dick, Chris Holt Photos, Darlene Gait, Esquimalt First Nation, James Bay, Lieutenant Governor Steven L. Point, mural, Ogden Point, Songhees First Nation, Victoria, Victoria BC

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Art, Community, Design, Mind, Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.