An eastern suburbs resident’s prayers to transform Bayswater into Perth’s “Brunswick” have been answered thanks to the success of a neighbourhood crowdfunding campaign. Bayswater resident Christine Wright launched a GoFundMe earlier this year calling on locals to donate to help commission an artist to paint a mural on the outside wall of her Toowong Street home. Within weeks, the GoFundMe had reached its target of $2000.
Brunswick, a hip burgeoning suburb in Melbourne’s north, is renowned for its trendy murals and public street art. “I’ve been spending a lot of time at home with my (new born) ..
. and I’ve been thinking a lot about land space and how we use it,” Ms Wright told PerthNow. “I’ve been looking at that wall thinking ‘God, it’s so boring and it’s so big, I’d love to see something on it’.
“The monetary side of things has not been as easy so that’s where the GoFundMe has come in ...
my neighbours were like, ‘Do it and we’ll pitch in,’ but I said ‘No, if the community wants it we will find out through GoFundMe’. “It was only a matter of a week or two and we got the donations ..
. everybody was stopping me at school, cafes and on the street saying ‘What an awesome idea, we need more art around Bayswater’.” The mural, which was complete in late July, was painted by Amok Island’s Xander Rood — a Fremantle-based artist from the Netherlands — and depicts a grasshopper and willie wagtail.
The willie wagtail, Ms Wright says, is an ode to the long-held belief that the small bird is a reincarnated spirit of loved ones who have passed. “I had a lovely conversation with an older woman who had just lost her husband and she was admiring the willie wagtail who often visits my front yard, and I said, ‘Yeah, I call that one dad,’” Ms Wright said. “It made me realise that a lot of people see those that they’ve lost in willie wagtails.
” While the mural is painted on the outside wall of Ms Wright’s Toowong Street home, the wall overlooks Toowong Reserve, meaning it can be admired by the public. “I used to live in Melbourne and I saw so many murals en route to work even through suburban areas, and I just thought, we need more of this,” Ms Wright said. “It’s been really nice to have the support of the community.
”.
