CORNWALL, Ontario – New vibrant Canadian colours have transformed a downtown Cornwall parking lot.
Artists John Logan approached Burton Girling of Kastner’s with the offer to replace the graffiti on the back wall of their building with a new mural.
“I park back there a lot and I saw the wall,” he said. “I didn’t have an idea at first, but we wanted to do something Canadian.”
Originally, there were ideas of having a trading ship or the old Seaway International Bridge, but in the end, with some advice from one of the residents at the local senior’s centre, he settled on fall maple leaves and a Spitfire fighter.
Logan had four people in his crew and they took five days to complete the project.
Logan has 19 years of experience as an artist and this summer created murals in downtown Ottawa and in Montreal. He said he started out creating similar stuff to what his mural on Kastner’s has covered over.
“I was that kid who was scribbling on the back walls,” he said.
Girling said that so far, he’s heard a lot of positive feedback in regards to the mural.
“Every time I was back there people were stopping and commenting,” he said. “No bad comment so far. People are very happy with it.”
Logan explained that he hopes to do other murals downtown and that murals like the one behind Kastner’s are the best way to deter graffiti.
“The biggest way to fight stuff like that is with stuff like this,” he said. “Kids leave stuff alone that they know has been done by one of the vets. If there is ever anything painted over it, I’ll come back and fix it.”
