The Downtown Chatham Centre mural, taken down in 2014, will be stored until a new indoor home can be found for it in Chatham.
In a report to council recently, Jeff Bray, manager of parks and open spaces, updated council on the search for a new location for the mural. It was first installed in 1989, donated by Henry and Lila Faubert as a memorial to their son, Larry, who died with muscular dystrophy.
The mural, made up of 350 tile pieces and created by Canadian artist Cliff Kearns, is an aerial view of Chatham and the surrounding countryside. Due to vandalism and its outside location and cold winters, Bray said in the report the mural adhesive holding it together “contributed to the mural’s deterioration.” It was removed in sections from the DCC at the request of owner Dan Warrener, and stored.
In 2014, Bray said, with the Faubert family, an alternate location of Kingston Park was decided as an appropriate site.
In 2015, Chris Snedden, director of artistic programming at the London Clay Art Centre was hired to evaluate the mural’s condition and re-location recommendations. Snedden’s assessment put a cost of replacing damaged tiles at $16,000 and said an outdoor location would only result in the same kind of damage due to winter freeze/thaw cycles. He strongly suggested an indoor location at a cost of $65,000. He estimated an outdoor location would cost about $123,000 to build a base to hold the 720 kg, 7-metre-by-3-metre mural.
Bray said, to date, they have not found an indoor public location that has the space for the mural and recommended it be left in storage until an appropriate location can be found.
The report also recommended that an interpretive panel depicting the mural’s history at a cost $8,000 be considered during the 2017 budget process.
Council approved the recommendations.
