Community come together to work on big 30-panel mural for 100 years of Corrigin Ag Show

A big community mural to mark the Corrigin Ag Show centenary is nearing completion ahead of its September unveiling with five panels still to be painted. The 1.5x3m aluminium panels feature images taken from previous shows with each panel representing the past 100 years in three-year sections. “There are 30 panels that are all the same size,” project leader Sonia Price said. “The idea for the project was accepted in March and the design process went right up until July-August 2022, the panels we got about September and we started painting in October. “We didn’t paint in December and January because it was too hot. “I’ve taken the photos, put them on the projector, traced them onto the panel and worked out the light and shadow then allocated each section a number. “We wanted to get as much community involvement as possible and I thought well, paint by numbers is easy, I do the thinking and people can come along and paint.” The painting process was open to everybody with a big portion of the Corrigin community getting involved. “We’ve had around 120 people come along and paint and many have been multiple times, I’ve tried to run it on different days and at different times so that everyone could participate,” Ms Price said. “We’ve had the men’s shed in, school kids - it’s been great.” The panels are being worked on by the community and stored in Corrigin’s disused Uniting Church, a building perfectly suited to the large-scale project. When installed on the wall of Corrigin’s Ram Shed on Kirkwood Street, the mural will cover approximately 135sqm. Ms Price said that she has mixed more than 400 colours from the primary coloured paints she purchased for the project. “The black and white ones are relatively easy to allocate colours to as I only had six tones,” she said. “When it comes to the coloured ones I have to mix up a lot more colours, so the preparation of the coloured panels takes about six hours which is a lot of time but well worth it.” When installed the panels depicting the past century will run sequentially transitioning from black and white to full colour. “There’s still quite a bit of finishing off to do but I’ve got a great core of ladies who said that they’d come along and help,” Ms Price said. “The reception from the community has been absolutely wonderful, I’ve been knocked over by the response.”