This year’s Alberta Culture Days will include the painting of a mural at the Westlock Action Sports Park Sept. 28.
Westlock will celebrate Alberta Culture Days with the rest of the province Sept. 28 with events for all ages at the library and a special Paint the Skate Park event planned for the afternoon.
It will be a full day for anyone wishing to participate in what is actually a nationwide celebration of the arts, as each province holds their own celebrations on the same weekend each year.
In the morning, Edmonton-based Graffiti Salad artist Jordan Ernst will be painting a mural at the Westlock Action Sports Park and take the rest of the afternoon to provide interested kids with some guidance in their designs as they create their own masterpieces on the skatepark cement.
The 26-year-old artist is originally from Saskatoon and has been painting murals full-time for the last two-and-a-half years.
“It’s really cool to be part of painting a skatepark,” said Ernst, who hasn’t worked much with small communities in the past, apart from a mural in the Rural Municipality of Wilton.
“I am a skateboarder, that’s how I actually got into the graffiti art thing was being in skate parks, I had seen the graffiti in my city,” said Ernst.
The new design will be a tribute to the Westlock area’s agricultural past and present with a grain elevator and train tracks running through it.
On his most popular mural Ernst featured the main characters from the animated TV show Rick and Morty, which was a pleasure for the long-time cartoon fan. The mural went viral when someone snapped a photo and posted it on social media.
The lettering style featured in that mural will also appear on the skatepark, and it’s intended to speak to the younger communities in Westlock, the ones who use the park on a regular basis, with bright colours and neat contrasts.
“To the younger ones, it’s something that will either inspire them or encourage them to understand colour theory,” said Ernst.
While Ernst takes four or five hours to paint the mural that morning, activities are also been planned for the library. The library’s Michele Arts said the event will focus on music, art, drama and writing this year, from 12:30 to 3 p.m. There are also a couple local musicians lined up for the afternoon and in between performances, visitors can expect improv, an author panel featuring local writers and an adult craft session, which is still in the planning stages. The idea is to have something for the entire family, said Arts.
“We always bring the quilters because everybody loves the quilters,” she added.
From 3 to 5 p.m. those who want to take part are invited to return to the skatepark to see Ernst’s new mural creation and participate in the demonstration.
He plans on teaching kids how to use spray paint, help with their designs and help fill the rest of the park with the kids’ colourful creations.
