A new cube-shaped mural was recently installed in Harris Road Park in Pitt Meadows, B.C., that combines images painted on individual panels of graphic display board into a mosaic overlaid with airbrushed eagles.
‘Eagles in Flight,’ a collaborative effort between local artist Brad Dinwoodie and the community, was unveiled as part of the city’s centennial celebrations on June 7, this year’s Pitt Meadows Day. Local children, teenagers and adults had painted 288 square white tiles—each 203 x 203 mm (8 x 8 in.), cut from 1.2 x 2.4-m (4 x 8-ft) sheets of 3A Composites’ Gatorfoam board—at the previous year’s Pitt Meadows Day, after which Dinwoodie pieced them together and airbrushed the eagles with mountains in the background.
When the city’s public art steering committee first came up with the idea, Kevin Josephison—a territory sales specialist representing EM Plastic & Electric Products from a branch in Port Coquitlam, B.C.—recommended 3A’s board as a light but rigid substrate for the mural. With polystyrene (PS) foam bonded between two layers of wood-fibre veneer laminate, it would resist warping, dents and scratches.
“We wanted a mould-, mildew- and moisture-resistant material that wouldn’t break down,” says Dinwoodie.
Epic Imaging in Port Coquitlam printed the artist’s original mural design onto four bright white Gatorfoam sheets using an Acuity ultraviolet-curing (UV-curing) flatbed press from Fujifilm Canada. The sheets were then cut into tiles, numbered on the reverse side for proper placement.
Participants at the 2013 Pitts Meadow Day were asked to paint the tiles with exterior acrylic house paints in bright colours.
The original plan was to display the completed mural on an interior wall of a city-owned property, but given the 2.4 x 4.9-m (8 x 16-ft) scale of the artwork, this proved challenging. So, the steering committee decided to display the mural outdoors instead, wrapped around a dimensional aluminum frame and cement-board walls.
To protect the mural against weather, sunlight and graffiti, the tiles were attached to the walls with a premium construction adhesive, their edges and spaces were sealed with clear silicone, the artwork was further sealed with four coats of a urethane-based clear acrylic and the entire ‘sculpture’ was secured to a poured concrete base and a rain-guard top.
“Exterior-grade Gatorfoam is designed to withstand weather as long as the edges are protected against UV exposure, which can otherwise discolour and eventually degrade PS foam,” explains Gary Scott, a senior technical representative for 3A. “This mural was engineered well and I was able to recommend its approval by Pitt Meadows’ city council.”
“If it weren’t for Gary, this project wouldn’t have happened,” says Susann Sigmund, a photographer, designer and past chair of the public art steering committee. “City council had rejected our proposal first.”
While most materials, services and labour were donated by local businesses, city council also had to vote to absorb the expenses of structural engineering, the aluminum frame and installation.
