Newsreader: "Take a look at the old St. Joseph's Hospital, ready for its makeover at
80,000 square feet work is now underway by Kelly Graval also "Risk," and a small
crew of four from Los Angeles, California have only just 10 days to complete the
mural reporting live here...back to you"
Risk: That's a big building...helicopter pad...probably seven or eight stories?
In the past I've done so much buildings I've never like, measured them, or thought about them, but
this is clearly the biggest I've ever seen. When I saw the building I was like
dude...it's a month to mask off the building at least, and they were like "nah paint the
windows," I was like what!?
Kwest: As soon as I said you know you can paint this whole
Hospital okay you know that was it like he was just like
Christian: and that's when we got the email going
I think it was a four-word email that just said "Risk wants the Hospital"...
Risk: so it's gonna be fun and crazy because I'm not bringing like dudes that
paint with me for twenty years, i'm bringing these dudes out they just can get s**t
done right? 'Cos it's gonna be about getting mass amounts of paint on a
building quick and then I'm gonna spend last couple days tying it in and making
it look cool. It's gonna be a challenge but you know, that's 80,000 square feet
You know Monster Energy and I have been talking a long time about doing something big
and so this is big!
Brian: It's a cool building you know everybody spent time here
everybody was born here.
Risk: Like on the plane on the way here people were like "I was
born in the hospital" and everyone keeps hitting me saying they were born here so
I guess this was a very established main hospital here.
Maggie: This is a building that has a lot of
emotional attachment for people and we're putting something
beautiful on it at least while it's here it's something beautiful and when people
look at it they're also gonna remember the beautiful memories that they had in this building
Risk: Saint Joseph's Hospital, built in 1949 and I'm here to transform it
give it its last breath of life
Brian: There's a busy street that goes right in front
of the building and I lost count of how many people
drove by and honked and gave a thumbs up or yelled "great job!"...sure some people
aren't gonna like it, you know but our intention was to turn something that was
really an eyesore into the community, into something beautiful and bring some
color to Sudbury
Christian: There's nothing that beats turning that corner on Paris Street
driving by and just seeing this wash of color like you turn that corner
and it's just "holy s**t"
Brian: Sloan's out of LA nothing gets him down. He's always positive (laughs) he does this for a
living. He's a commercial painter.
and then you have Evan doesn't say much
no matter what you tell him he'll get it done. If you tell him to jump on the
135-foot boom lift and take it to the top of the building on his own and
unload a generator on low paint he's on the lift and he's on his way up to the
top of the building no questions asked he just does it
and then Caesar this is
first time Caesar's ever done something like this.
Caesar: I took this course, says I'm
certified to drive these things, so it's all good I got this
Brian: and Caesar's sort of our
I guess swing man you know if we need somebody to jump on a small lift and go
paint something or drive a lift somewhere...and Caesar's also our comic relief
...they don't have tacos
Brian: I work with a lot of artists. Risk is my favorite
artist for a number of different reasons. In my eyes the graffiti movement is possibly
the most important art movement in the history of art and he's a pioneer in that
Kwest: I'd say he's like the West Coast "Don" of graffiti.
if not the most important foundational
West Coast graffiti writer, he's in the top three.
Christian: He pioneered a lot of the the street art on the west coast with like the high-rises
and billboards, big overpasses and stuff. Kind of moved away from that
towards more of the gallery world and was able to do that leap which is
awesome and now he's doing these giant more contemporary art pieces around the world
Brian: He's taking his art way beyond graffiti. He is now an
extremely accomplished contemporary artist with the sculptures that he does
the neons that he does. What he does here with these murals, it's not graffiti, it's
it's color wash, it's part of color theory although he uses a graffiti color
palette and some of the fundamental things about graffiti are reflected in his murals.
Kwest: You know he's still who he is, he still produces his work as he would
have 20 years ago. This day in age there's a lot of people who lose that
you know they sort of forget about where they're from and then start you know
bending the knee or whatever but Kelly's just blazed, you know?
Christian: It's a really big deal to have Risk at our festival for our fifth edition.
Caesar: Well we're gonna leave behind a lot of color!
Kwest: I just want to walk away knowing that yeah we did the
largest mural in Canada. We painted it as we wanted to, that's a win you know? If we
walk away and we're just happy with what we've done.
Sloan: Probably the baddest a**ed piece of art in Canada period,
but they get a lot of snow here too so, can you imagine like,
to see this thing in the middle of winter?
Maggie: I hope it brings pride to the community.
I hope it also brings peace to some people who struggle with the fact that
nothing's been done with this building for ten years.
Risk: I wanted to make an impact,
a statement and invoke a lot of emotion of color. I think we definitely invoked
emotion, I hope it's the right emotion, I hope people like it. Thank you for
everybody's come by and given us water and talk to us, shared stories with us
and had drinks with us in the bar, brought us food and all that. Awesome, thank you guys.
and I hope you like it
When you're driving by here, when you're on the lake. When you're
seeing photos online if you're not from Sudbury, or if you're watching videos
about it, I want everyone to leave with the sense of wonder, with the sense of
magic. With the sense of "how the hell did they do that!?"