Artist Nickie Lewis hopes to bring joy with new mythical sculptures

Walking through the narrow winding trails in Hume Park, you might just miss the mythical creatures that reside there.

As the extreme heat set down on the Lower Mainland, artist Nickie Lewis took me on a tour through the shaded trails of Hume Park. There I met Willa the Wishing Walabeast, Alvis the Advising Axolin, and Gerald the Gifting Griffon.

Lewis’s work may be familiar to visitors of Robert Burnaby Park. Earlier this year, her mythical sculptures were featured in the park for several months before they were destroyed.

Conjured up from her imagination and made from cedar sticks and twine, Lewis says her creations are a reflection of our lives during the COVID pandemic.

“The idea is that these are hybrid creatures and sort of to symbolize that we are coming out of this pandemic,” says Lewis.

“We were these people before the pandemic and we’re other people after, and how do we make those two come together and be the people [we are] now.”

At the heart of Lewis’s art is sustainability. Her sculptures are an attempt to make art with materials readily available in the park which can be reincorporated into nature over time.

“It’s a lot of things that I wish had been done differently”

Lewis says she never anticipated her sculptures at Robert Burnaby Park to gain so much public attention.

“It started as me being an artist and being bored out of my mind during COVID,” says Lewis.

“I started doing it just for fun. And then there were a lot of seniors that were walking their dogs through the park. And they just started expressing how excited they were about it and how it was kind of bringing them joy during a pandemic when they couldn’t go anywhere.”

“My art is intended to kind of be tucked away into places that they generally don’t let art exist,” Lewis says.

“A lot of people have the misconception that I sought out media attention for it, when in reality it just spiralled from online stuff.”

A few months after their completion, the statues were vandalized and ultimately destroyed. Their explosive popularity brought unfortunate damages to the park.

“The biggest problem is that it drew so many people who just didn’t care about the fact that that part of the park is actually an ecological conservation area. I think that’s more what it was about than anything with the city. They weren’t prepared for that kind of traffic, and they had no staff to come in and help fix things because it was COVID. It’s a lot of things that I wish had been done differently,” says Lewis.

“The idea that I could have caused some damage to the beautiful ecosystem, it breaks my heart a little bit. It was sad, but probably for the best. … The forest needed some time to heal after all of the traffic.”

“I would go back in a heartbeat”

While Lewis waits for the City of Burnaby to decide whether it can incorporate this type of art in its parks again, she’s determined to show the city that it can be done right.

“I’m putting some calls out to the other municipalities. We’ll just have to keep nudging and keep showing them that it’s doable. I’m so flexible to do whatever they need me to do to make sure that we can tick all the boxes,” says Lewis, who hopes to return to Robert Burnaby Park, with a better plan in place.

“I would go back in a heartbeat. It is a very magical park and the neighbourhood is beautiful.”

At the end of the day, Lewis wants to bring people together with a mythical touch.

“The main goal of my art is just to bring people joy. One of my favourite things about Robert Burnaby was I would just walk the park and listen to complete strangers yelling at one another from across the way like, ‘Have you seen the unicorn? Do you know where the dragon is?’ It brought people together in a way that I wasn’t expecting.”

For now, the 3 works can be enjoyed at Hume Park, where they are easily accessible to the public on the main trail. Learning from her previous experience, Lewis hopes that the location of these sculptures will reduce the environmental damage.

“It’s important, as you’re bringing people out into nature, and you’re teaching them about how to be respectful in nature, [that you do it] in a way where we have the infrastructure for it. So the ones at Robert Burnaby probably should have been placed in places where there was a main path next to it.”

Burnaby Beacon reached out to the City of Burnaby for more details about the removal of the statues but did not hear back before deadline.

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