Back alleys in Sunnyside transformed into public art galleries

Murals making magic in Sunnyside A group of residents are doing their part to beautify their community through the power of art. Stephanie Wiebe reports.

It first started a just a handful of painted doors, but now residents from all over in Sunnyside are picking up paints and brushes to liven up one of the most unlikely areas in their community.

Christie Page says she was inspired when she first laid eyes on the painted garage doors in her community and wanted to paint hers, but initially had cold feet about the idea.

“There were three or four when I moved into the neighbourhood. I just thought they were so neat and I really wanted to do one but I wasn’t sure what the neighbours would think and I wasn’t so sure of myself to do anything about it.”

It was only a while later, once Page got a new neighbour that the creative juices really got flowing.

“In about a month, she painted her garage door. She didn’t ask how I felt about it, she didn’t ask the neighbours; she just went out and did it.”

A short time later, Page completed her door that features a painting of a bathtub, to memorialize the summer of 2013, when the whole community was submerged in the waters of the Bow River.

She says that ever since she painted her door, she’s awakened a hunger for more art in Sunnyside, an area known to be very creative.

“I put an ad in the Calgary Art Collective and asked for muralists just to tell me what you would charge to paint a garage door and I put it up on our Sunnyside Facebook page and since that’s happened we’ve had a few more people paint their garage doors.”

Not only do the murals create a surreal environment in the community, Page says it also helps businesses and homeowners too.

“It just makes it safe, a more comfortable place to be; a more fun place to be. I grew up in the suburbs and you could get lost one cul-de-sac to the next because they all look the same.”

The pieces of art are having a real impact on visitors too. Geoffrey Jones, who is visiting from the U.K., says the back alley murals are an excellent idea.

“It seems to be very healthy, a healthy idea, decorating the community you live in with beauty and imagination.”

Martin Ballantyne, also visiting, says that the murals help remind him of some of the places he’s been to in the world.

“I have this wonderful feeling of deja-vu of seeing this incredible graffiti which I first saw in such excellence in Spain,” he says. “On garage doors and down small alleyways were these wonderful cartoon type graffitis with the most exquisitely detailed pictures and this made me remember.”

Now Page sees every alleyway in the community to be filled with blank canvases for more works of art and she hopes that everyone will get on board with the idea.

“Sunnyside is already a destination. This neighbourhood is just seething with art, all around. It’s worth walking to, but if we could get everyone to paint their garage door, it would be a gallery, it would be the destination to come to in Calgary to check out art.”

Sunnyside isn’t the only Canadian community to adorn its back alleys with pieces of art. Winnipeg’s Back Alley Arctic features dozens of wildlife-themed paintings on fences and garage doors.

You can learn more about Sunnyside’s gallery on the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association’s webpage.

(With files from Stephanie Wiebe)