Creative Airdrie wants to tell the story of the city through a unique art project and are looking for your help to do that.

Creative Airdrie Board Chair Jennifer Benner says communities across Canada are helping to create a mural meant to connect the country through art.  She says Creative Airdrie has been working with the Canada 150 Mosaic project for over a year now and are excited to be able to finally tell the community about it.  

Airdrie will create a section of the mural that symbolizes our community.  The piece will become part of a stand alone mural showcased in Nose Creek Park and be a part of a visual time capsule for the national unified project of over 80,000 tiles.  

Benner says, "For our community mural we're looking at about 400 tiles.  The program itself is put together by a renowned artist and what he does is helps come up with a larger design and then he helps to direct on what colour of tiles we need.  A few will be painted by professionals but most of them will be painted by community members. He then takes them away and arranges them into the larger picture."

The overall design, according to Benner, will represent the Airdrie water tower.  

Benner says they're looking for about 330 community members to become the artists for the mosaic.  "It's open to anyone really.  We're especially encouraged to have youth over six years of age, we're also looking to get seniors in there, new Canadians, any aboriginal people that would like to join in.  It's really open to everyone.  It's their perspective of their community that we're looking for so their individual tile will represent their perspective and then we bring it all together to represent a snapshot of our community for 2017."

The painting for the mosaic will take place in September during Artember celebrations.  "It will be Tuesday and Wednesday, September 26th and 27th.  We'll get shifts of people to come in and paint over the course of two days, then the artist himself will come in and take the tiles away and arrange them then we'll have a dedication ceremony on October 1st."

As part of their partnership with the City of Airdrie, Benner says the Airdrie portion of the mural will be displayed at Nose Creek Park.  "We're donating it back to the city and they're going to install it in the new concession area of Nose Creek Park."

Anyone interested in being part of the artistic team for Airdrie can find more information or register here.  The deadline is September 15th.  

The project is free of charge thanks to the Alberta Government's Community Initiatives Program for Canada 150 projects.  

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com