Our Mosaic

The Canada Mosaic Mural project was launched in 2015 to celebrate our 150th birthday, beginning the journey to complete 150 murals illustrating Canada’s cultural and geographical diversity.

The purpose of the project is to create a national mural including all provinces and territories, 100,000’s of paintings and 150 individual murals that when united will form one gigantic mural mosaic. The mural, if ever connected would be over 365 meters wide (4 football fields) x 2.5 meters high (8 feet).

The mural will represent a cultural mosaic, a time capsule, a visual portrayal of history, an art masterpiece from the soul of the nation. An art piece that fifty years from now, may inspire another generation, who will in turn be able to celebrate through the mural, and maybe take it upon themselves to add to this memory.

OK..... I admit that information above was copied from the Canada Mosaic web page. The final mosaic representing our town is finally installed in the local Leisure Centre, in the hall linking the library, the pool and the fitness centre.

The public were invited to paint 4"x4" tiles with whatever topic they thought would represent the town. Of course, there were some guidelines to follow, both in shapes and colours.  The basement of the museum was set up with tables and chairs, paint and brushes, and boxes of tiles. I painted quite a few but I can't really remember which ones now!

The mosaic is half finished on display outside the log house in the museum grounds.

And the finished mosaic. I think I painted the "fried egg" in the middle of the wheel on the left, and some of the blue tiles too. And one with corn on it, but I can't find that one now. Perhaps the one in the second row from the top?

HMS Ajax

The town of Ajax, Ontario, is closely connected to the British Naval cruiser, HMS Ajax, and streets in the town have been named after the officers and men who served on her. You can get the full story here.
The Canada 150 Mosaic project was launched in 2015 beginning a journey to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday by creating mosaics illustration Canada's history and geographical diversity.  The purpose of the project is to create a national mural including all provinces and territories, over 150 individual murals comprised of over 80,000 painted 4"x4" tiles.
Each mosaic from each community is shown on mounted on a set of railway wheels.... no, HMS Ajax wasn't really on wheels.... but this will represent the railways that played such an important role in connecting communities right across this huge country.
This is the mosaic hanging in Ajax Town Hall, created from tiles painted by members of the community. It didn't matter if you have never held a paintbrush before, all ages and skill levels were invited to contribute. The painting of 800 tiles took place in October 2016 and the mural was installed and unveiled in January 2017.

 A couple of my favourite tiles. Not sure exactly where they are on the mosiac. Keep looking closely, you might find them.

The town where I live is also working on a mosaic, and I spent an afternoon at the local Museum painting tiles a couple of weeks ago. I'll be showing more about our town mosaic very soon.