A local artist has painted a shipping container mural for Sun Peaks Freestyle Club (SPFC) as the non-profit prepares for the winter season ahead.
After receiving a grant from the Kamloops Blazers Legacy Fund, SPFC purchased a sea can to use for storage. Since the container was bright red and rusty, the club commissioned Sun Peaks artist Ben Morris to jazz it up.
Morris, the owner of Red Tree Design, said he’s grateful for the opportunity.
“Originally I had done the logo for the freestyle club when they first got together as an organization so I guess they kept me in mind,” he said. “I took it as a project where if anybody was to look at [the sea can] that didn’t know what the freestyle club is … they would still kind of get a sense of what it’s about.”
Morris said when planning a design, he likes to think of key words that describe what he wants to portray. For this project, he thought of terms like playful, youth, active, joyful, colourful and bright.
“All those kinds of words help point the project in a direction. And then once I have those words, it becomes a lot easier to come up with a design,” Morris said.
He added the process was fun, but a lot of work. Before he could even start painting, Morris had to peel stickers off the container, brush off rust, power wash it and put a coat of primer on.
Morris has now completed the mural, but the shipping container still requires stickers of SPFC’s logo to be placed on before being moved up Mt. Tod to its final location.
“We were going to paint the logos originally for the freestyle club on there,” he said. “But because it’s corrugated and the kind of paint I have to use — it’s like a very thick oil based paint — it’s tricky to do a lot of fine details. So I sort of convinced them to go with a large decal.”
The sea can mural isn’t the only exciting update for SPFC this winter. The non-profit will be introducing a new year-round high performance program for skiers looking to compete at the Canada Cup level and beyond. Chris Mavin has been hired as head coach to lead athletes through the intensive training.
SPFC will also host the Canada Cup and Timber Tour again this season. The Canada Cup is a national level competition that will take place Jan. 12 to 15, while the Timber Tour is a provincial level competition with three events across B.C., including one at Sun Peaks from Jan. 19 to 22.
“We appreciate all the local volunteers and businesses that supported us in these events last year and are hopeful we can count on them again this upcoming season,” said Brennan Thompson, president of SPFC, in an email to SPIN.
Thompson added SPFC is honoured to be co-beneficiaries of the Sun Peaks Gala this November.
For more information on programs and events, visit sunpeaksfreestyleclub.ca.
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