Mimico’s latest mural by artist Jessica Hiemstra depicts the animals and nature beloved in the community.
Just in time for Christmas!
The newest mural in the community has been completed on a wall outside Mimico Home Hardware and it signifies Mimico and its nature.
The large wall of art on the outside of the Superior Avenue store is the handicraft of Etobicoke artist Jessica Hiemstra, who is also a writer and designer.
“Jessica works in a variety of mediums on many kinds of surfaces – from watercolour and thread on paper to acrylic on acetate to plastic bags sewn into canvas,” according to her website.
”The Mimico waterfront is home to many animals who have lived here for thousands of years,” she says. “This mural is a portrait of the animals and trees who call Etobicoke home.”
Artist Jessica Hiemstra whose works of nature attracts many.
She says the mural brings to life the flora and fauna of our neighbourhood, and the beautiful home we inhabit together on the shore of Lake Ontario.
The mural includes the beaver, which resides among the rocks along the water way; the mink, often seen fishing and darting along stones on the lakefront and the red-necked grebe; whose nests and mating rituals are part of the spring and summer landscape.
It also features the hooded merganser, whose spiked crown cuts into the skyline along the lake in cold months. There is also the bufflehead, whose compact black and white body bobs on top of the water; a garter snake; which flits in the underbrush along the trails and the skunk; that digs for grubs during the night along the shore and in the parks.
There is also the mallard, that every spring brings much joy to the neighborhood with trails of ducklings bouncing like corks in the water.
Another eye-catching piece of artwork by the local artist.
“Many people have enjoyed the abundance of the waterfront in Mimico over the centuries,” Hiemstra writes. “Algonquin-speaking Mississauga people settled here in the 1600s and named the stretch of shore between the Etobicoke Creek and the Humber River “wadoopikaang” which means “where the alders grow.”
This word was transcribed by a settler surveyor as “ato-be-coake,” which became the word Etobicoke.
The background colours in the mural are reminiscent of the blues, greens and greys that are characteristic of the lake and sky throughout the seasons.
You can see more of her work at www.jessicahiemstra.ca