The Wayfinder Project

B.C. Artist and Visionary Spreads Art and Inspiration to Small Communities

By Jennifer Conkie

Michelle Loughery

For the past year, I have been working with a remarkable artist, community activist and visionary, Michelle Loughery. Her dream, the Wayfinder Project, is to create a series of linked murals throughout the country, painted by her with the help of at-risk youth employed on her mural crews, and leading visitors to explore the history of Canada in a new way.

She invites young people to work with her and she teaches them how to be self-reliant and how to find themselves through art.

Michelle is from Vernon. For over 20 years she has been inspiring young and old alike with her large public murals. She is recognized internationally and has painted sites the U.S., Scotland and Australia. After 9/11, the Brooklyn Fire Department commissioned her to do a mural to commemmorate their fallen, which now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution. Here at home, she paints the stories of small towns, and her "Talking Walls" tell the history of our country. The community is awakened, the young people are employed, and the tourists see our towns and stories in new ways.

It is hoped that the Loughery Mural ArtWorks Foundation will be partnering with private and corporate sponsors to deliver this project.

Michelle and crew member

Michelle originally asked me to be her lawyer, and then her negotiator and manager, as she entered some challenging discussions with governments at all levels and with corporate sponsors, seeking support to realize her vision.

It has been an honour to assist her, and to work with the impressive members of the Board and her other advisers and consultants, including Hyphen Communications on the creative side and Fred Yada and Amber Papou on the business and project management side of the planning. My sister, Barbara Conkie, and her company, Conkie Communications, have been behind us all the way, too. Great patience is needed to realize great dreams. We are committed, dedicated and excited for the day when the Wayfinder Project takes flight.

Click here to see a selection of Michelle's work.