by PAUL RAYNER

Maintenance has been the word for the Boissevain & Morton Arts Council for several years, and 2009 is no different. For three of the community’s outdoor artworks, the work will be proceeding now.

According to Wayne Pringle of the Arts Council, the work planned was well considered.

“What we are doing and what we have decided to do over the years,” Pringle explained, “is to keep the murals we have up to date, and hold off painting new ones. Earlier this spring we looked over every one and decided to do renovations on three murals.”

The artworks getting the love this year are Pioneer Kitchen on the Turtle Mountain Appliances building, the Morton Sawmill on The Hand Crafter and the Salute to the Boissevain Medical Profession on the Cherry Creek Metis Council building. The amount and type of work is different per mural.

“In some cases, there is moisture that is causing peeling or flaking, some need new lettering. It will be a slow process.”

The Arts Council hired Anne Boychuk, a well-known mural artist to do the work. The process will include a power wash of each mural, then the restorative work.

“We looked at her work before hand and she is really good,” Pringle said. “She does all of those murals in Brandon, and we were able to look at what she had done. She is unbelievable, she does really nice work, really good faces and figures, and she should be able to get them all looking good.”

When talking on Monday, Pringle said she was hoping to get started later in the week, when the weather dried up. As he explained, the painting obviously cannot be done while the artwork is wet and he said she has ways of telling if it is dry enough to start.

Pringle said Boychuk is looking to work some long hours to get the restorations done. He feels she should be spending three or four long days per mural.

“I would expect it would take about 12 days to do all three of them, working long days.”

If all works well, Pringle said Boychuk would be returning in the future to do more work on other murals.

“We will look at it every year, check out the work,” he stated. “We’re looking to do two or three a year.”

One limiting factor is cost. He said they are spending around $10,000 on the work in 2009, so they can only afford so much a year.

As well, other murals that could use some work have uncertain futures. Some of the buildings they grace may see some changes or even extinction relatively soon. For example, the hockey game on the Boissevain Community Theatre, which is planned to be replaced, is the latest mural with question marks. Pringle said the mural is on metal panels and it could be salvaged. But like other ones, there is no point moving on restoration work until questions are answered and the future is better known.

“There is no sense working on some of them until they are moved or we know what’s going to happen to them. Some might disappear or have to be transferred to another building. There are too many ‘ifs’ to start working on them now.”

As well, the Arts Council is hoping to move on sign replacement. They have a new promotional sign ready to be put up to replace the faded one located south of the 49th Parallel. The hold up is that only Americans are allowed to do the work in the US. As of the time of speaking, Pringle did not know of anyone contracted to put it up.

Although not as glamorous as putting up a new artwork with all of the fanfare, Pringle said they feel keeping the twenty-plus murals they have in Boissevain in good shape is a really important part of their duties.

“This is what we’re planning,” he explained. “We will keep working on the ones we have, replace some if we have to. We still have people coming to see them, taking pictures of them, so it’s pretty important to keep them in top condition. We put a lot of them up over the years and now maintenance is the number one thing for us.”