Time to grab your paintbrush, spray-paint, pottery wheel, or whatever you deem fit, to join the BUMP Festival and their celebrations about all things public and community art related. 

The BUMP Festival started Aug. 3 and continues until Aug. 18. The festival is set to host 39 local, national, and international artists to share their art form in graffiti, mural works, and road works according to the BUMP Festival.

As the festival continues to celebrate artwork in public spaces, they have added an Urban Art Conference where attendees can listen and learn from leading artists in their desired field, converse with like-minded artists in networking events, and undergo workshops.

“We had four panels, two workshops, they have been designed in a way to create really charged conversations around the public realm,” said Priya Ramesh, creative manager of BUMP.

As the festival grows in popularity, so does the artwork commissioned by the festival.

“At this point, we’ve programmed over 300 public art installations of which we’re sitting at around 130 just murals. We’re trying to kind of shift Calgary through public art and through interesting, unique, innovative programming,” said Ramesh.

“We have a nice, healthy mix of people who can speak towards these topics that it isn’t the same stuff that you’re going to keep hearing.”

The BUMP Festival also provides the ability for aspiring artists to be able to share their art on a big scale, especially having a city like Calgary open to adopting public art in various spaces around the city.

“I think the spaces should be celebrated; urban spaces should be celebrated. There’s no better way to celebrate those spaces, but doing it with art, it creates community,” said Dr. Pablo Ortiz, Dean of Students at Alberta University of the Arts.

“It creates a passion for tourism as well. So, I think it’s a great initiative.”

The BUMP Festival has allowed local artists to share their creations on a scale that may not have been achievable before.

“It’s a great exposure. Not only locally, but the murals also that are around the city specifically, the Beltline murals are seen in every single corner of the world,” said Ortiz.

Canvas exposed to a wider audience

Artists like Harvey Nichol who is also one of the speakers at the Urban Conference will be commencing his first festival mural starting tomorrow (August 10). Nichols finds that the involvement of the BUMP Festival with public art makes the art seen on a wider scale.

“It brings that sort of global movement of public art and mural art into our city, into our streets,” said Nichol.

“This type of art makes creative expression accessible to everyone.”

Nichol is a multidisciplinary artist who is mainly doing murals at the moment and is also going to start on a 7ft sculpture.

“I’m currently also doing a residency with Bankers Hall and Brookfield Properties on Steven Avenue, where I’m taking over a retail space and turning it into an artist studio where I’ll be making a seven foot tall sculpture for the rest of the year. After the mural season is over and it will be toured around the city,” said Nichol.

Another artist who also spoke at this year’s BUMP Festival conference is Billie Rae Busby, a Visual Artist who is an abstract landscape painter. 

“Landscape is the one thing we all have in common. I really like the idea of coming up with new ways to see what our sky is like, what those maybe memories, people have of being in different places would feel like rather than recreating a photograph,” said Busby. 

The involvement at BUMP gave Busby not only art that can be seen around the city but also education on how to complete certain art forms.

“The great thing is that it was a great step for me to learn how to do murals and because they still exist, they are in different parts of the city, so people can see my art just driving around or walking in their neighborhood,” said Busby.

The exposure that the BUMP Festival creates gives art a spotlight that often may have been missed, according to Busby.

“For me, it’s exciting, it shows even if I don’t get chosen, I’m cheering on all those other local artists and other artists because there’s room for all of us,” said Busby

“The more opportunities that are offered through festivals, corporate sponsorship, whatever it is, it just means that we have more opportunities to show local art around.”