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Mural prints make great gift for horse lovers

By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Visitors to this year’s All-American Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus couldn’t miss the enormous equine-themed mural dominating Congress Hall and drawing steady crowds of visitors.

But for those who haven’t had a chance to see it, the Le Cadeau de Cheval: The Horse Gift mural is certainly a sight to behold. With the Christmas season fast approaching, original prints of this artistic equine masterpiece would make a unique and memorable gift for any horse lover.

The 22.6-by-18.6-foot mural was unveiled to the public in September at Spruce Meadows in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. With 174 artists from around the world creating 238 original paintings on individual panels, the mural took 18 months to complete and was the brainchild of Lewis Lavoie of the Mural Mosaic team.

“The idea came about after we did a mural called Trust,” said Phil Alain of Mural Mosaic. “The mural became an Internet sensation, as it showed a young child embracing its horse. It is then we realized how much of a connection there was between horses and humankind.”

The Mural Mosaic team is comprised of Alain, who is the producer and public relations coordinator of the team, and brothers Lewis and Paul Lavoie. Lewis is the director and key artists of the group and Paul serves as the production manager and co-producer.

The three have worked together developing Mural Mosaic since 2004. Lewis actually created his first Mural Mosaic in 1997, painting hundreds of individual paintings himself to make up the face of Michelangelo’s David. But it wasn’t until 2004 that they embarked on their first community Mural Mosaic using 70 artists from Alain’s Night of Artist group, who painted live in a 24-hour marathon to created the Heritage Fiddler.

Several murals and projects later, their first horse-themed project, Trust, was created in 2007, which led to the creation of Le Cadeau Du Cheval: The Horse Gift, which was their first international project.
“We explored it deeper and not only realized that there was an incredible passion out there, but of course great history and thousands of artists who painted only horses,” said Alain. “It was decided we had to celebrate the horse through art.”

While every great story has a unique quirk, the thousands who have already enjoyed this impressive artwork might never have guessed that all three members of the Mural Mosaic team who worked on this project were allergic to horses.

“The mural has been such a wonderful project for us, as all of our lives we’ve had to avoid horses for health reasons,” said Alain. “Now, we’re connecting with them through art. It was amazing, the knowledge we gained and the love we felt for horses through others opened a whole new world to us. Plus, lots of medication allowed us to get closer to horses, and it truly was an amazing experience.”
Each artist who participated in the project only knew what their individual painting would be, not that painting’s role in the entire piece.

“All the artists were told is that they had to use certain colors in their painting, and some may have been given some lines they had to use or shapes,” said Alain. “But none were told what the big mural would be.

“They only had to paint a horse from their own personal relationship with it. It would be a historical horse, personal horse, mythological horse – whatever they wanted, it just had to be a horse.”

The artists involved in the project worked on their pieces of the mural from around the world, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Romania, South Africa, Spain and the United States.

“We used the Internet to look for equine artists and invited as many as we could to join us,” Alain said. “As the project began to gain steam, we received e-mails from around the world from artists who so badly wanted to participate in the project. It was quite amazing.”

A limited edition of prints (only 5,000 produced) are available for $100 each and measure approximately 26-by-31.5 inches. To view the mural in its entirety, see individual panels, learn more about the artists involved or purchase a print, visit www.muralmosaic.com

12/10/2008