The Mission Arts Council (MAC) has revived the photo mural project proposed for the Leisure Centre.

MAC executive director Nancy Arcand picked up the phone to offer help as soon as she heard early last week the donations were to be returned and the project cancelled.

MAC has held the funding in trust since April and now it is an arts council project. Arcand says she has the support of the mural committee, including project leader Eric LeBlanc.

“I didn’t feel it should disappear,” she said. “Let’s work through the proper channels. It’s something that needs to go through.”

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The reception kicked off the artist’s month long exhibition Playing with Form & Time which shows her incredibly detailed and varied work that includes carvings, glass work, ink drawings, prints, and sculptures.

Donna Macdonald, who sits on Nelson’s Cultural Development Committee, says the mural — painted on Boomtown’s garage doors without city permission — was given a temporary blessing until the end of 2010, so council could base its final decision on the upcoming downtown design review.

But with the okay set to lapse before the review is due, and the committee already working on a joint art-approval process with the city’s Heritage Commission, Macdonald says Boomtown’s mural “seemed an obvious one to try it out on.”

The sculpture is a metaphor for the dynamic movement of dance and the flowing nature of creativity, said the artists. Standing on the busy highway in the open air, it will give the appearance of movement in response to the rhythms of the sun, clouds and environment.

Councillor Brian Downie wanted the city to deal with some of the garish aspects of what it approved in the fall and brought up the issue at last night’s council meeting.

“This has generated various concerns and comments within the community,” he said of the building’s multi-coloured inner city appearance.

It’s the second time in a week Downie has tried to get council interested in what has been done to the building in the aftermath of its approving a weekend of art by the local Skeena Diversity group.

“There’s been a steady flow of…negative comments,” he said, but acknowledged that Skeena Diversity has been receiving supportive comments.

Now police, the city and Nanaimo Art Gallery are out to repair the damage and find the culprits.

The vandalized items include a ceramic sculpture of a sea bird by artist Lori Sorenson, valued at about $1,000, which someone smashed the head off on Wednesday, just two days before a public auction for nine pieces on display in the park for several months.

A handwritten note offering a reward for information about the vandalism is duct taped on the damaged sculpture, but Sorenson said she has no idea who wrote the note and the phone number listed on it is not hers

A call for submissions for the city’s Celebrate 125 Vancouver Mural Program opened this week, but for Kristina Copeland, the mural program coordinator for Great Beginnings, the program is much bigger than the paintings that will become part of the cityscape.

“I see the value of these murals as part of a much larger strategy,” Copeland said.

Copeland has spent several years working to combat graffiti, but she said the job has become harder this year.

As part of the award, Kleine received $10,000 from the City of Castlegar, which has purchased his sculpture for permanent display. He also received a $3,000 cash prize and certificate.

SculptureWalk organizer Pat Field said the awards gala, held Saturday night at Element, was “an overwhelming success.”

The call for submissions for the city’s Celebrate 125 Vancouver Mural Program opened this week, but for Kristina Copeland, the mural program coordinator for Great Beginnings, the program is much bigger than the paintings that will become part of the city’s landscape.

“I see the value of these murals as part of a much larger strategy,” she said.

Once the site of a series of colourful murals painted in 2007 as part of a fundraiser for the Steve Nash Foundation, the wall became a point of controversy when the City of Vancouver painted over those murals in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Emily Carr’s statue will overlook one of the city’s most popular tourist areas, which includes the stately Fairmont Empress Hotel.

The larger-than-life statue shows Carr with two of her most famous sidekicks — her pet monkey Woo sitting on her shoulders, and her mixed breed dog Billie, standing near his master.

While the City of Terrace received a handful of complaints last week from residents not happy with the Co-op building’s new look, some city councillors say they have mostly heard good comments.

Councillors Bruce Bidgood and Bruce Martindale were the only councillors in town last week, as the rest of city council attended the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in Whistler. Both said feedback on the artwork was overall positive.

“I think overall, it’s been 51 per cent in favour, and 49 per cent against,” Bidgood said, who said he has been getting many strong opinions from people on the issue.

If anything, he said the project has been good, as it has garnered discussion, and most people are not usually so vocal.

Greg Magirescu, the city’s manager of arts and cultural development, said once he knows how much of a budget he can work with, he can take it to the Canadian artistic community to come up with a creative way to display the work.

“We’re looking at making it an iconic piece that will draw people’s attention to it, but render it in a different way,” said Magirescu. “Once we know how much, I think council will be very pleasantly surprised

The statue, created by sculptor Chong Fahcheong, was removed from its home off the shore of Marina Way Park last August after it was damaged in an apparent act of vandalism.

At the time, city staff reported that while the artwork had suffered damage in the past, the latest incident was more significant and that the integrity of the piece had been compromised. However, they were “very hopeful” that the sculpture could be repaired, reinforced and reinstalled in the near future.

Earlier this year, artist Ken Lum’s from shangri-la to shangri- la was installed at Offsite, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s public art site at the Shangri-La Hotel on West Georgia. Works installed on the site are all intended to be temporary, and Lum’s three scale replicas of the shacks that once stood on the mudflats in North Vancouver will be removed as scheduled on Tuesday.

What’s changed is that the art work has a new lease on life: The District of North Vancouver has agreed to take the wood-and-glass installation, which was built at a cost of about $50,000.

“We’re very excited,” said Ian Forsyth, the director of the district’s arts office. “It was an initiative of the mayor, Richard Walton. He was intrigued about bringing it over to North Vancouver.”

Forsyth said that at a recent council meeting, the mayor and six councillors voted unanimously to bring Lum’s piece to the district “and make it a permanent part of our story.”