A Good Start to 2008 for ArtStarts
Guest contribution by Harriet Fancott
ArtStarts was thrilled to hear that it was the staff choice for Opus on Granville Island's in-store donation drive over the holidays. Generous staff members talked up ArtStarts to its customers and together raised $2,820. This number was matched by Opus in the form of a gift card bringing the total up to over $5,600. What a wonderful New Year's present! The customer donations will be used to support our programming endowment, and the gift card will be put directly towards art supplies for artist-in-residence projects.
One of ArtStarts main programs lays the groundwork for teachers, artists and students to integrate arts with learning as a means for developing creativity, critical thinking and discovery. To this end, we support approximately 100 artist-in-residence projects a year across the province representing music, dance, theatre and writing with the vast majority in the visual arts. Projects often combine an art technique with a theme or narrative such as cultural heritage, environmental sustainability or identity. In this way, young people come to understand that art is not merely decoration but has meaning and a role to play in society that articulates what they are thinking. ArtStarts does not aim to train young people to be artists but to spark their imaginations so they can see the power that art can have in their lives.
Many of these works are displayed in the ArtStarts gallery, which is the first exhibition space in Canada dedicated entirely to the work of young people. Most students are familiar with having their work displayed on the fridge or on the classroom or hallway walls, but few have the opportunity to have their work publicly displayed in a gallery setting and professionally mounted. The ArtStarts gallery does just that. Taking the work of our youngest artists into the public realm can transform their wonderful creations, giving them a dignity and presence that is quite powerful.
Our current exhibition showcases work by students from Duncan to Vanderhoof. From a stunning felted hanging, created by high school students in Chetwynd to mixed media banners depicting the rural heritage of Nakusp, the work on exhibit will rival anything you've seen in any gallery in colour, form, texture and power. The pièce de résistance is a 24 foot, 800lb cottonwood canoe created by students in grades 1 through 8 at a cultural school in Penticton. This full size canoe, carved from an indigenous Cottonwood tree, sits in the centre of the gallery, a testament to the contribution and traditions of the Okanagan people and their relationship with the natural world.
If you can't make it down to the gallery, ArtStarts has just launched its virtual gallery at www.exhibitions.artstarts.com. It's a vibrant and informative repository that documents all the work exhibited in the gallery.
Our downtown gallery is located at 808 Richards St (at Robson) and is open Monday to Friday, from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. Tel: 604.878.7144. Website: www.artstarts.com
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