A brightly coloured rainbow mural has generated joy among residents of the Coombe Road area.
Local artist Katherine Griffin, was commissioned by community group Happy Mountain Community to paint the mural on the bricked side of a house on Buller Road.
The project, funded Sussex Community Foundation with a small donation from Dobbies Garden Centre, aimed to promote the importance of pollinators and flowers.
Local resident, Peter Griffiths, said: “Thank you so much. My daughter beams with excitement and shouts ‘rainbow’ every time we pass it. It’s brilliant.”
Another neighbour, Maggie O’Callaghan, said: “So beautiful. The only good thing about Coombe Road being shut is that I’ve had to regularly divert past this as it’s been worked on. We need more on the mountain.”
Ms Griffin, said: “I loved the concept as they wanted the mural to reflect the community and be educational for the local school.
“They had made planters with pollinating plants and a Busy Bee Bookswap.
“I wanted to create something bright, eye-catching and joyful with accurate representations of flowers that help the bees to pollinate and had a strong positive environmental message.
“I also helped make visual and informative proposals to support the group’s funding applications and attended meetings with the community group, who are impressively hands-on and very driven.
“I found myself to be seven months pregnant by the time it was scheduled in.
“I subcontracted some help from two amazing artists; PINKY and Francesca McLeod to paint the rainbow and help me climb the high ladders.
“Residents were so helpful – Emma and Simon let me take over their house with paint and ladders and even helped me pack away in the evenings as I waddled about with my big bump.
“It was such an enjoyable place to paint with a wonderful community feeling and I got asked at least 10 times a day if the bench and bookswap would be back so it felt all was very well received.
“It was a really lovely project to work on and a fantastic point for people to gather and chat.
“I had lots of lovely conversations and saw people taking selfies under the mural which made my day.”
The community group also ran a competition with Coombe Road Primary School children in the spring term to include a logo design on the mural.
Happy Mountain Community member Lucy Dansak said: “We ran a competition in Coombe Road primary school for the children to design a logo for Happy Mountain.
“A 7 year old won it and we’re hoping to add the logo to the mural.”
The bookswap bench and cupboard in the same spot suffered from graffiti, arson and vandalism earlier this year in March, and had to temporarily close.
All three contributing mural artists have also participated in the new Shaun by the Sea art trail across the city, raising funds for the Martlets hospice.
Katherine Griffin’s huge painted fibreglass sculpture of Shaun the Sheep will join 41 other sheep sculptures and 77 mini Shauns on a trail sponsored by local businesses from Saturday, 9 September to Sunday, 5 November.
Griffin’s sheep, Eden – number 20 on trail – can be found on Trafalgar Street.
Really lovely what you have done a real atony chievement well done.
I recently, 3 months ago, had a Mural created on my wall near Sainsbury’s on the Lewes road. It looks really good
and has been trending on social media. We need loads of these all over the city done by professional artists.
There must be loads of free walls to paint.
I agree!! Love that idea to brighten up the place. Commissioning artists is a wonderful thing, they can spread their creativity and change spaces for the better. More community fundraising could be done to support this for the good of everyone 💕
Finally can see the correct rainbow (7 colours). This rainbow means a lot: God’s promise.
Unfortunately God’s rainbow doesn’t have pink.
The first Pride Rainbow flag included pink which represented sexuality so with Brighton being the LGBTQIA+ capital it’s great to see the pink included
Really lovely!
Well done to the artists who made this happen. Adding a bit of colour to people’s lives is something special.