Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

By Jill Sperling

McDonald Park

Work begins on murals meant to beautify McDonald Park

Sep 12, 2019 | 5:27 PM

KAMLOOPS — McDonald Park is getting spruced up with a pair of murals.

Local artist Kelly Wright was commissioned by the McDonald Park Neighbourhood Association to create an art piece on the walls of two park buildings.

The hope is the murals will liven up the park and discourage drug use, vandalism and other illegal activities.

The murals will wrap around all four exterior walls of the buildings and are expected to be complete sometime in October.

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The concept came out of a survey conducted by the neighbourhood association last fall.

“We were looking for ways that people wanted to — what improvements people wanted to see to McDonald Park, which really is the heart of our neighbourhood,” said Sarah Johnstone, spokesperson for the McDonald Park Neighbourhood Association. “One of the suggestions that came up was to do a mural.”

The association took on the project as a way to beautify the park, attract more families and deal with some park issues.

Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

“One of those issues has been vandalism and graffiti on the washroom and the changeroom buildings,” Johnstone said. “After looking at what has happened with the mural downtown in Kamloops and also at a park in Victoria that also put murals up, we found that they saw a significant reduction in graffiti.”

The association reached out to local artist Kelly Wright after taking a look at his portfolio, which includes a number of downtown murals.

“The McDonald Park Neighbourhood Association came to me, this was back in April, we had a meeting,” Wright said. “They wanted to do some work on the walls to get rid of vandalism and spruce it up a bit. I was more than happy to help out.”

Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

Wright collaborated with the Neighbourhood Association on the designs, coming up with a B.C. wildlife theme for the old pool change rooms, and a ‘bee’ theme for the public washrooms to depict Kamloops’s designation as a Bee City.

“Kelly incorporated this really cool design, we have a number of bees that are native to Kamloops, so he’s going to be working those in on that building,” Johnstone said. “And, the changeroom building, we decided to also keep with the theme of doing local wildlife, and Kelly designed this image basically of the Thompson River with a number of local animals that will be alongside it.”

Wright works 8 to 14 hours a day on the mural, injecting his own style and method into the art piece.

Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

“It’s all freehand,” he said, “so you just go with the flow of it and work from there.”

The murals come in at a cost of $20,000. While the work has already started, more funding is needed to get the job done.

“We have a GoFundMe page set up,” Johnstone said, “we also have a fundraising dinner coming up on Monday the 23rd, and find that information on our Facebook page, but yeah, we’d love to get more people, even if it’s just $20 here or there it all makes a big difference.”

You can find more on Wright’s art on his website or Instagram @ArtistKGW.