One of our long-time Opus Kelowna staff members, Heather Hawkshaw, offered the following reflection on how communities pull together in difficult times such as those of this past summer. We thought it appropriate to include this in our newsletter this month, as our sympathy goes out to all of those who lost their homes. In particular, we feel for the many local artists who lost studios, supplies and much more.

From the Ellis Street store, the progress of the Okanagan Mountain Park fire was evident. Smoke, billowing hundreds of feet into the air some days and accumulating in the valley bottom others, was our constant reminder. In these unbelievable days, we, the Opus Kelowna staff, each had our own experiences of this event, heavily shadowed by the realization that many of our customers and friends were dealing first-hand with the possible and actual loss of home, studio, and precious works of art created over a lifetime.

Certain acts gave us hope in the necessity of art in comprehending this difficult time. In the long line of evening traffic of those being evacuated, a pick-up truck carrying just two men and a large work of art in the truck bed, poignantly revealed the importance of treasured art objects in each of our lives. Handmade signs created by children and adults on roadsides all over town, were creative acts resulting from the overwhelming desire to communicate thankfulness to all those individuals who selflessly gave of themselves to protect our community. Artists came into the store to get supplies to draw or paint in personal attempts to understand this event, or to make art to donate to benefits in aid of fire relief. An artist finding small chunks of burnt wood washed up on the beach created beautiful marks on his paper with this charcoal. The forest in its new form, will continue on in the hands of artists of this community who will create from its memory, its progress, and its future.

At the request of local artists, the Kelowna Art Gallery, has begun to plan for an unjuried exhibition of art created about the Okanagan Mountain Park fire. For further information contact Dona Moore, Executive Director of the Kelowna Art Gallery at 250-762-2226 or email kelowna.artgallery@shaw.ca. As more information becomes available it will be posted on the Gallery website at www.kelownaartgallery.com, and in future issues of this newsletter.
~ Heather Hawkshaw