Painting the Golden Mile

In wall sections, participants paint and draw out the design of the VIEWS: Golden Girls Edition mural project, led by Next Generation Arts and funded partly by the City of Toronto, inside the O’Connor Community Centre on Sep. 17, 2022. Themes of the project include beautifying Scarborough’s historically prominent Golden Mile community and empowering women living in this highly multicultural neighbourhood in Toronto.

Pictured inside the O’Connor Community Centre’s main hallway on Aug. 13, 2022 as the painting phase began. Aimed at 20 local women and non-binary artists from Scarborough and beyond, the Vision of Inspiring and Empowering Walls in Scarborough or V.I.E.W.S. is an intensive training program in mural painting.

The participants get a first peek at the mural design projected on the wall in an upstairs meeting room in the community centre on Aug. 13, 2022. Led by Mariz Pe (left), who works in the tech industry by day, the mural painting design was developed as a group through a collaborative and iterative process with the artists over the first few weeks of the program.

The original design of the mural is shown on a screen as Cai Jerome, 28 listens to a conversation on Aug. 6, 2022 inside the upstairs meeting room of the community centre. The mural is part of the City of Toronto's Cultural Hotspot Projects, a program that showcases local artists and community organizations, and engages the public in free public art and community projects.

The O’Connor community centre pictured on Aug. 27, 2022, the site of the VIEWS: Golden Girls edition mural painting project, is located only a few blocks away from Eglinton Square, considered as the heart of the Golden Mile neighbourhood.

Participants gather around Helen Stratigos (second right) on Aug. 13, 2022, before priming the walls for the mural. The whole length of the main hallway wall had to be sanded and painted to build a fresh canvas before the work can begin on the mural.

Participants are pictured tracing the mural design with pencils on Aug. 20, 2022. The projected design on the wall include roses in different hues of pink, which represent themes on femininity in the design of the VIEWS: Golden Girls edition mural project.

One of the participants mixes paint on Aug. 20, 2022 before the work on the wall can begin. Participants in the program spent their first few weeks in class, including in a colour theory workshop, so they can mix custom paint shades for the project.

Scenes from the final days of the VIEWS: Golden Girls edition mural project on Sep. 17, 2022 inside the O’Connor Community Centre as passersby stop to look at the group painting in progress.

Ashleigh Hamilton-Webb, 17, and the youngest participant in the group, is pictured painting alongside others on Sep. 17, 2022.

A participant picks up a paintbrush and some water to begin her work on Aug. 27, 2022. Extra copies of the printout of the mural design are laid out for reference for any of the artists to use.

Mariz Pe (centre), who is facilitating the mural project, answers a question in between painting on Sep. 17, 2022.

Farah Hoosain, 24 is pictured putting the finishing touches of her section on the mural wall on Sep. 17, 2022 while the others tackle a different section in the background.

Claire Forsyth, 20 stops to look at the printout of the mural wall as Natalie Sze Wai Ho, 25 holds the reference print on Sep. 17, 2022.

One of the participants mix paint on a piece of sketchbook paper being used as a paint palette on Sep. 17, 2022.