When you walk into the children’s section of the Moose Jaw Public Library, you’re sure to notice the bright colors of the winter mural painted across the window to your right, the work of local artist Trea Stafford, who has autism, and his mentor, Mark Gilliland.
“This one I think is the biggest one that Trea has ever done before. It took several weeks to do, and Trea wanted to have a mural with different winter activities and different animals that we see in the winter,” said Gilliland.
The painting took Stafford an estimated 16 hours of work, over several weeks, and is the fourth mural commissioned from him by children’s librarian Tina Dolcetti. It depicts some classic Canadian winter imagery: hockey, ice fishing, local wildlife, and even a hibernating turtle. Past murals have included a spring and summer window, a fall window, and a Halloween-themed window.
“I actually first got the idea for this because Trea was doing an art of disability exhibit with Mark, so I saw his stuff displayed there,” said Dolcetti. “I am in charge of making sure this place gets decorated, and there's no way I'd be able to dedicate 16 hours of my work week to painting something like that, and doing the design process. . . so that was a blessing.”
Gilliland has been Trea’s mentor for a few years, and he says this mural is only an example of the type of art Trea has done.
“Trea is in a mentoring program, and I am one of his mentors. I teach art also at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery Thursday night, so I teach multimedia art for intellectually challenged adults,” said Gilliland. “Trea has been involved with that before, but not at present, and he’s done some pretty amazing work. He's done lots of clay work in the past as well, several murals.”
When asked what his favorite part of the mural was, Stafford couldn’t decide on one aspect; he likes every part of it, and he said he enjoys imagining the mural during the planning, the most. His next mural is going to be something for spring.
“I don't know, maybe I could do a kayak,” said Stafford, when asked what he’s thinking for his next window mural.
“Maybe we could do a big canoeing or kayaking scene,” added Gilliland.
Dolcetti finds that this kind of collaboration is important to not only the artist, but to the community as well, highlighting the significance of the library in connecting people.
“It’s great when people are coming by, and they see Trea at work and they'll stop for several minutes and watch him while he's painting,” said Dolcetti. “By seeing Trea work, people learn that people, regardless of who you are, can be contributors and can do something, and I think that's also very important.”
“We've had so many afternoons just hanging out here, and painting and stuff, and we've had dozens and dozens of people come by, ask questions and look and inquire and admire, and talk to Trea, and are quite inspired by him and his art,” added Gilliland. “That's kind of the bottom line, I think.”
