Melanie Jewell’s mural My Journey Home transforms the façade at Main Street and 14th Avenue in Vancouver into a vivid blue night sky crossed by flowing bands of white and violet. Stylized bears in orange, grey and other colours float among circular shapes and plant-like forms. The geometric, almost pixel-like figures contrast with the flowing lines that evoke the dancing lights of the aurora borealis.

Behind this colourful composition lies a deeply personal family story. Created in 2022 for the Vancouver Mural Festival, the mural is dedicated to Jewell’s mother, Jeannie, and her late grandmother, Sophie Marie, whom the artist never had the opportunity to meet.

As a child, Jeannie attended a residential school in Fort Simpson, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. In the late 1960s, she learned that her mother was seriously ill and began the journey home. Delays prevented her from reaching her family in time. When she finally arrived, her mother had already died. Jeannie never had the chance to say goodbye, a loss that remained with her throughout her life.

The bears represent members of the family: the 14 smaller bears stand for Sophie Marie’s 14 children, Jewell’s aunts and uncles. The large mother bear on the left represents her grandmother embracing Jeannie. This imagined reunion symbolically restores the final hug that Jeannie had desperately wanted but never received in real life.

The northern lights are equally central to the mural’s meaning. For Jewell, they honour the spirits of those who came before us and connect generations across time and distance. The lights that once danced across the sky for her grandmother now accompany the artist on her own journey through life. My Journey Home thus transforms a story of grief and separation into a tribute to family bonds, remembrance and the enduring comfort of ancestral connections.

Vancouver Mural Festival

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