Two Shire of Plantagenet locations locked in for Mt Barker Murals and Mountains Festival masterpieces

The locations of the first two murals for the highly anticipated return of Mt Barker’s Mountains and Murals festival have been locked in. Last Tuesday night, Shire of Plantagenet councillors granted approval for a mural to be painted on the western wall of the Mt Barker library and conditional approval for the erection of free-standing structure for a mural on lot 702 Albany Highway, 14m from the historic crane. The inaugural Mountains and Murals festival in 2019 saw six murals painted in Mt Barker and attracted big crowds to the town, but COVID restrictions led to the project being paused for the past two years. Mountains and Murals committee member and Walldogs artist Dave Johnson said he was excited things were ramping up for another festival after “a long, drawn out process.” “Sometimes it’s hard to maintain the enthusiasm but we’re back up and running now with things moving ahead,” he said. “The international contingent has grown to 18 coming from all over the world. “ It’s pretty exciting.” In addition to the two locations approved by council this week, five other locations — including a community mural — will be announced closer to the November 16-20 festival. Mr Johnson said it was standard process for the Walldogs to keep the locations and designs of the murals under wraps until two weeks before they would be painted. “That will be done on a Thursday night at the town hall here in Mt Barker,” he said. “The Walldogs will beam in via the US, Canada and the UK to talk about their murals and what they’re doing.” Approval was JUalso granted for a mural to be painted on the eastern wall of the archive repository at the museum. It will be painted as part of a workshop, run by Mountains and Murals in collaboration with Art South WA, on the first weekend of October as part of the Southern Art and Craft Trail. “It’s something that is being put together with Art South WA as a way to continue promoting the arts through the Great Southern,” Mr Johnson said. “They thought it would be a way to generate a bit more interest, then we hope that those who do come along to the workshop will then get involved in the mural JUfestival as well because they’ll have an idea of how we go about it. “We’ll take them through from the design process right through to actually putting it on the wall — the process of how we turn an A3 pieces of paper into a 10m long mural.” Participants will learn the theory side of the Walldogs style on Saturday morning before marking out the mural in the evening and spending all day Sunday painting.