Artist Paul Grignon remembers it being hot on the three days he spent outdoors painting a mural of an arbutus tree on the wall of what was then a health food store along Nicol Street.
On breaks he’d come inside the then-Blue Skies Foods to drink water and stand in the store’s walk-in cooler, laughs his wife Tsiporah, who worked there at the time.
Completed in September of 1993, the mural has stood as a well-known piece of public art in the South End, but in recent years has begun to peel and deteriorate.
This weekend through July 20 and 21, the arbutus tree mural will undergo a restoration by local artist Yvonne Vander Kooi and a team of neighbourhood volunteers.
“It was just meant to be,” says building owner Dyane Brown, whose son Neal Brown now runs a bookstore called Arbutus Books out of the building.
The building was in need of a paint job, and Dyane had been considering the fate of the mural and whether — like so many in town — it would end up needing to be painted over. Though an accomplished artist who has painted many murals in town, Grignon has now retired from painting.
As she was mulling this over, Dyane happened to be watching the bookstore for Neal — something she doesn’t often do — when Vander Kooi walked in.
“Yvonne came in to look for this book and the first thing she said to me was, ‘I love that mural so much. I think it’s one of the best in town,’” Dyane says with a laugh. “And I said, ‘Funny you should say that, because I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, I might have to paint it over.’”
As soon as she heard this, Vander Kooi immediately volunteered for the job.
“It’s been a feature of the South End, a lot of people have been looking at it for decades,” says Vander Kooi.
“I’m not into resurrecting murals — they have a life, and when their life is over, that’s okay because then it’s time for something new. But there’s something special about this mural, it’s not about any kind of particular history, it’s not telling a specific story, which a lot of historical murals tend to do. It’s simple, it’s the arbutus tree, it’s kind of iconic of the west coast.”
After arriving in Nanaimo and settling on Gabriola Island in 1973, Grignon completed a number of murals around town, including one on the Fletcher’s warehouse on Prideaux Street, on the wall of the old Nanaimo Times building downtown and one depicting Harley Davidson motorcycles just up from the existing one on Nicol Street. He also did a number of murals on the walls of businesses in Ucluelet.
“As an artist, Paul was quite versatile. He’s known for his paintings, of seascapes mainly — our local beaches and out on the west coast in Tofino. But he earned a living for our family,” says Tsiporah.
Arbutus were one of Paul’s most-loved subjects, and he sold hundreds of cards depicting the smooth-skinned trees that are a staple of west coast shorelines, she adds.
“It’s a dancing shape from our environment. It may have been one of the main reasons we stayed here. On Gabriola there’s very many beautiful arbutus trees,” says Paul. “The mural was fairly casually tossed off, but I’m happy people enjoy it.”
Vander Kooi will head up the restoration project, which runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days at 87 Nicol St., but is looking for volunteers with an artistic background to help with the painting.
She is also seeking help with setting up the scaffolding on Friday night, as well as donations of paint, brushes, rollers, ropes, rags and anything else that might be used for a large painting.
“I think it’s going to be an ambitious project, but I can paint fast,” says Vander Kooi. Anyone who wants to get involved or drop off supplies can email Vander Kooi at yvonne.birdstudio@gmail.com.
