Tagging is just a waste of good paint.
The Prince George & District Community Arts Council might want you to rethink that statement. They have called their anti-vandalism pro ART youth program by that name and hope it's a wake up call for those who wish to use those graffiti-art skills in a positive way.
With a Community Enhancement Grant from Enhance PG, donated paint from General Paint and plywood from Windsor, the arts council has assembled a group that wish to beautify buildings in the community with unique art.
Lead by project artist, Milan Basic, participants are painting a mural on the back of the Community Arts Council building, located at 2880 Fifteenth Avenue.
There's about a half dozen youth that participate and because it is summer and people go out of town for vacation, that number dwindles at times, said Basic.
The group meets each week for a couple of hours to put paint to wall and Basic has developed the design for the mural himself.
"First we had a public information session and that allowed an opportunity for anybody to come and give their input as to what they would like to see on this wall mural," Basic said. "This gave everyone an opportunity to have a sense of ownership over it."
Then it came time for youth to be brought in.
"There was a getting-to-know-you meeting where we sat down together to draw and shoot the breeze," Basic said.
Then it was time to take action.
"For the first step, we pretty much threw paint at the wall," said Basic. "Once that was all done then we had projected all the imagery on the wall. A lot of what's going to be on the wall is plywood cutouts."
Up against the wall is a bunch of rebar originally put there as support for plants.
"This will be a dimensional mural with figures behind the rebar, some in front of it and some painted on the wall," Basic said.
So now there is a slowly-emerging mural, Basic added.
"There's birds and bees and plants and flowers and fish," Basic said. "It's an Earth theme and we tried to basically cover creatures from land, sea and air and it's really just a commentary on our Mother Earth and all the creatures that don't get enough credit."
There is no definitive end date to the project but Basic is hoping to have the mural complete before the youth head back to school.
