Buoys Used For Canada 150 Legacy Project

One of the Canada 150 projects in Vernon should leave a lasting legacy in the community.

Mural artist Michelle Loughery is working with community members to paint rescued ocean buoys to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism.

It’s called the Diversity Mural Bead Project, and most recently, Loughery has been working with local students.

“In the last month we’ve been at every different school, and working with students and the school district. We’re working with the kids and having them tell us, through the buoys, their story.”

The buoys washed up on the shores in Vancouver after the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

Loughery tells Kiss FM the art work will eventually be located around the community.

“There will be 150 of them for sure. There is all different sizes, small, large and gi-normous ones. They’re really interesting because they’ll be hanging from trees. Some of them are real cute, some are really funny.”

The art work will be introduced as a temporary installation at the Vernon Museum on June 27.

At the same event on June 27, there will be a re dedication of Loughery’s multicultural mural on the post office building, which she painted in 2000.

It’s one of 26 heritage murals Loughery has created in Vernon since 1999.

Michelle Loughery works with local students