‘Out and About – Windows of Time’ is a large mural by Christiano De Araujo that features scenes from the social history of Weston village. Unfortunately, the (painted) young man who is sitting on the sidewalk and playing a guitar is hidden by the (real) car parked in front of the mural.
This is one of at least two murals in the village of Petty Harbour (on the east coast of Newfoundland). Like many of the historic murals in Newfoundland, it shows locals hard at work in the fishing industry – out in boats catching fish, on shore cleaning fish, maintaining nets, etc.
Painted in 2008, this mural depicts life in the early days of the fishing communities of Newfoundland. It is found on a retaining wall on Battery Road, one of the narrow hilly roads in the Outer Battery neighbourhood.
Before the second World War, about one quarter of the population of Kaunas LIthuania was Jewish – about 30,000 people. Known in Yiddish as Kovno, it was a city As part of the City Telling Festival (Istoriju Festivalis) in 2020 a couple of large murals were painted in memory of a few of these people. This festival was one of the events leading up to 2022 where Kaunas was one of the “European Capitals of Culture”
below: Leja (or Leah) Goldberg, b. 1911, poet. It was painted by Lithuanian artist Linas Kaziulionis and it measures 15 by 10 meters. The text is one of her poems “Oren” (Pine) written in Hebrew and Lithuanian.
Goldberg was the daughter of Abraham and Cilia Goldberg. Her father was an economist at an insurance company before WW1. During the Great War (i.e. WW1), most of the Jews were “evacuated” from Lithuania and sent to the interior of Russia. Lea was three years old when the family was forcibly deported from Kaunas. When they returned after the war and the defeat of Germany, Lea’s father was tortured by Lithuanian soldiers who accused him of being a Communist. He died before Lea emigrated to Palestine in 1935; her mother followed her the next year.
One translation of the poem:
Here I will not hear the voice of the cuckoo.
Here the tree will not wear a cape of snow.
But it is here in the shade of these pines
my whole childhood reawakens.
The chime of the needles: Once upon a time –
I called the snow-space homeland,
and the green ice at the river’s edge –
was the poem’s grammar in a foreign place.
Perhaps only migrating birds know –
suspended between earth and sky –
the heartache of two homelands.
With you I was transplanted twice,
with you, pine trees, I grew –
roots in two disparate landscapes.
below: Another mural with a poem that was also part of the same festival. It was painted by Tadas Vincaitis-Plūgas. The is mural dedicated to another Jewish family that lived in Kaunas before WW2.
The words are those of Hirsh Ošerovičius (1908-1994) written in 1964. The text is in Lithuanian but one English translation is:
Ah, do you really believe,
Oblivion has the final say in what is to be forgotten?
For it is often only an image from the ashes rising
And stand in flesh, in full reality
Forever framed for every day to come.
The mural depicts a mother, Greta, and her daughter Rosian Bagriansky. Rosian was born in 1935 in Kaunas. Her father, Paul (or Polis) Bagriansky, was a textile merchant and her mother was a concert pianist and music teacher. Rosian survived the Holocaust after her parents dug a hole next to the fence of Kaunas Ghetto and pushed Rosian through it and into the hands of one of their former employees, Bronė Budreikaitė. Rosian became Irena Budreikaitė
Back in 2014, Vytenis Jakas decided to turn a residential courtyard into an art gallery.
below: Charlie Chaplin oversees the entrance to the yard. The black plaque above Chaplin’s head is in memory of Juda Zupavicius (1914-1944) who was a lieutenant in the Lithuanian military and a chief on the Kaunas ghetto police force. In 1941 the Jewish residents of this area were forced out and had to relocate to the Kaunas ghetto. Zupavicius was also one of the leaders of the underground resistance during WW2.
below: The words under the photo of the couple: „Čia 1939 m. – 1941 m. gyveno Dita ir Juda Zupavičiai. Juda buvo vienas iš Kauno geto pogrindžio vadovų, žiauriai nacistų kankintas neišdavė geto vaikų slėptuvių. Dita buvo kovos bendražygė“ (English translation: “Here in 1939 – 1941 lived Dita and Juda Zupavičiai. Juda was one of the underground leaders of the Kaunas ghetto, he was brutally tortured by the Nazis and did not reveal the hiding places of the ghetto children. Dita was a comrade in the struggle”)
below: Venus probably never had to do the grocery shopping
Yard Gallery
Upon noticing that the neighbours living in the yard had become alienated and had forgotten the common past of the yard, the artist Vytenis Jakas started creating a “Yard Gallery” – a courtyard surrounded by apartment buildings built in the inter-war period. In the past, the yard inhabitants knew each other well, communicated warmly, celebrated holidays together, and supported each other in troublesome times. The yard had a large table, a fountain and a sculpture, the Dapkevicius sisters grew flowers, and lilacs grew near the windows of the neighbour Regina. Over time, the population and the social environment changes, the number of cars increased, and the yard space became too small.
Seeing this situation, Vytenis Jakas, with the help of other artists and neighbours, turned the derelict yard into a centre of attraction, the open air “Yard Gallery”. Various artistic projects are implemented here: Portraits of the Jews who lived in this house before the Holocaust, along with the current residents, characters of various works are painted on the facades of the apartment buildings; mirror mosaics and stained glass windows are created, and community events are organised, with community festivals celebrated together. “
… and rooster … and tractor.. paintings in Napanee Ontario.
Once used for storage, these silos were painted by Shane Goudreau as part of the redevelopment of the site – from County Depot to insurance company. An excellent way to preserve some of the history of the area.
He was born Nicu N. Iorga in Romania on 17 Jan 1871. He was a prolific writer and cultural historian. His biography is long and it gets complicated when discussing his scholarly works and opinions so I will leave that for you to read on Wikipedia (or similar) if you are interested. I haven’t figured out why he is featured on a mural in Albania. He was murdered in 1940 by the Iron Guard, a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party.
The text is written in Albanian (or Romanian, google translate had trouble with this) but the first few words translate as “When two quarrel, the third wins”
This mural was painted by Irlo Doidoi for MurAL Fest 2019.
La Fresque des Québécois is the title of a 420 m2 mural found on the side of Maison Soumande on rue Notre-Dame in Old Quebec City. It depicts figures from 400 years of Quebec City history. Twelve painters from France and Quebec contributed to the mural.
New France was the name of the French colony in North America beginning in 1593 with the arrival of Jacques Cartier. The French relinquished the colony to the British and the Spanish in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War
In 1763 what is now Quebec became the Province of Quebec, a British colony. In 1791 this colony was divided into two, Upper Canada along the upper parts of the St. Lawrence River, and Lower Canada, along the lower section of the river. Upper Canada is approximately what is now Ontario while Quebec has grown from Lower Canada. Quebec City was in Lower Canada.
Scattered around downtown Midland Ontario are quite a few murals with scenes of bygone days. Many of these were originally painted by Fred Lenz in 1996 & 1997 and then repainted ten or eleven years later by Terri Milley and Ruth Hurdle.
below: Midland train station and railway yard.
In 1871 the area was the village of Mundy’s Bay. That year, the Midland Railway chose Mundy’s Bay to be the terminus of a new railway line – the railway already ran between Port Hope and Beaverton and they wanted to extend it to Georgian Bay. The small community of Mundy’s Bay was renamed Midland City. By 1879 the railway was completed.
below: Midland is on the shore of Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron. Lumber and grain passed through this harbour and the town prospered.
below: Sewing in the window, with a view of the woolen mill across the street. 
below: European explorers and their First Nations guides canoeing on the lake.
below: A red and white lighthouse with a brilliant blue sky
below: Maybe when the first car came to town?
below: Above an Italian restaurant is this small picture of horses bringing logs to the saw mill to be cut into lumber.
below: HMS Bee, a schooner
below: A portrait of James Playfair. A the bottom of the pillar on the left: “A successful Midland lumberman turned to shipping in 1896. In 1901 he formed the Midland Navigation Co. In 1910 he established the Midland Dry Dock Co. renaming it in 1915 the Midland Shipbuilding Co to build ocean ships”. At the bottom of the pillar on the right: “James Playfair’s Company completed in 1917 a large new shipyard on the Midland Waterfront to build Government contracted ocean cargo steamers. The first one launched was the ‘War Fiend’ (1918-1920).”
below: Playfair Mills
below: Midland’s first post office opened in 1872
below: A tribute to Canadian Girl Guides
below: The cleaners, delivering clean clothes.
The murals were funded by Midland BIA & The Ontario Trillium Foundation
I can’t read Russian so I don’t know what the words on these murals say. I’d be willing to bet that they are government sanctioned and that they celebrate/promote Russian history and achievements.
below: A red rocket launches from a red hand in a mural celebrating Russian cosmonauts.
Eyes on the Streets 