Tag Archives: culture

Have a favourite art form? See it next week!

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week-13BC Arts and Culture Week is a province wide, annual celebration of art during the third week of April. Needing little excuse for a party, Oliver artists in all media delight in showcasing their skills. This spring, several arts groups are in the spotlight.

The week opens with the Oliver Sagebrushers art club presenting Art at the Owl  at the Burrowing Owl Estate Winery Guest House. The Sagebrushers are joined by artists from Osoyoos. The opening reception is from 1 -3 pm on Saturday April 20, with a continuing exhibit and sale during the following week. The exhibit is free and open to the public. Drop by the guest house in the afternoons from 12 – 4 pm daily.

The Sage Valley Voices Community Choir is “puttin’ on the Ritz” with a choral concert of Vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood hits. Not content to be “just” a choir, the ensemble adds colourful costumes and comedic repartee to enliven the performance.  Audiences have a choice of Saturday  April 20 at 7 pm or a matinee on Sunday April 21 at 2:30 at Oliver United Church. Tickets are $10 at the door, and include refreshments after the concert. Food Bank donations are always welcome.

The arts council takes their monthly “Arts Jam” on tour to the Oliver Regional Library on Tuesday April 22 at 9:30 am. The Friends of the Oliver Library will host the event. Arts Jam is a social gathering of many of the council’s 17 groups and 15 businesses. The primary purpose is to exchange current events news from  the local art scene. The public is always invited to catch up on all things arty in Oliver. The council also takes the opportunity to inform the public of its programmes and projects and address the needs of council members.

Oliver’s fabulous fibre artists invite the public to two open houses during BC Arts and Culture Week. The Double O Quilters Guild host theirs on Wednesday April 24 from 10 am to 2 pm at the Oliver Community Centre Hall. Tour displays and demonstrations throughout the hall.

The Desert Sage Spinners and Weavers Guild fling open their doors the following day at the same venue: Thursday April 25 from 10 am to 1 pm. Watch their flurry of activity at a felting bee. They are currently working on a felting project entitled “Crossing Borders”  for the Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds (ANWG). The local guild is felting two large three-dimensional cottages, one Canadian, one American. The cottages will be linked by a “cross-border” clothesline representing the goodwill between the guilds on both sides of the 49th parallel. The Desert Sage Spinners and Weavers plan to enter the  finished product at the ANWG conference in late June.

Visit Paw Prints Studio and Gallery at 212 Carr Crescent in Willowbrook Valley and the Oliver Art Gallery on Main Street, both of whom are also celebrating BC Arts and Culture Week.

The Oliver Community Arts Council is grateful to Arts BC, who funds BC Arts and Culture Week every year with a small grant  to cover joint publicity. We are also grateful to the Province of BC and the BC Arts Council who support the work of Arts BC.

Catch the artistic spirit in Arts and Culture Week

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BC celebrates Arts and Culture Week April 22 -28. Oliver’s arts council members are going all out to join in the art-y party! Come celebrate with us  and support the arts.

So, what’s up?

The Oliver Community Arts Council as a whole presents two signature events. One will kick off  the week, and the other will close the celebration. The “opening fanfare” is Love Notes from the  Penticton Concert Band on Sunday April 22 at Oliver Aklliance Church.  Tickets are $10, while students 17 and under are FREE.  The concert features some lush romantic numbers from the musicals Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, and Moulin Rouge, big band ballads by Jerome Kern, and some of your favourite Frank Sinatra.  Lovely young soprano Madison Johnson sings O Mio Babbino Caro by Puccini, as well as some romantic musical numbers.  Several members of the band are from Oliver and the South Okanagan area. Proceeds are split between the Band and the arts council — it’s a great way to support both groups!

The Oliver Sagebrushers‘ exhibit  “Art at the Owl” shows at the guest house of Burrowing Owl Estate Winery  from April 14 – 27.  While the opening reception is Saturday April 14 from 1 – 3 p.m., much of the exhibit and sale falls within Arts and Culture Week. This is always a lovely display at a lovely venue. Winery hours.

The Double O Quilters Guild hosts an “Mini Art Show” at their Open House on Wednesday April 25 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Oliver Community Centre Hall. Oliver has some of the finest fabric artists around, including some national award winners.  You will definitely be wowed! (Note: Opens at 10 a.m., not 9 as listed in the poster.)

Another fsbulous fibre arts group, the Desert Sage Spinners and Weavers Guild celebrate their 35th Anniversary with a Tea and Open House on Thursday April 26. Educational demonstrations and colourful displays will delight you. Light refreshments will be served. In a great artistic collaboration, the Oliver Handbell Ringers will perform during the event. What a delightful pairing of visual and performance arts!

The Oliver Community Arts Council winds up the week with a Spring Arts Faire on Sunday April 29 at the Oliver Seniors Centre. Displays, demonstrations, sales of art and craft in all media , information booths, … and lots more!  Sell, teach, demonstrate, exhibit, perform, sign up new members, — it’s up to you! All your sales are commission-free!  Entry forms are available here: OCAC Spring Arts Faire Entry Form (click once again on the file name on the new page to open file) or by emailing OliverCAC @ gmail.com Non-members of the arts council are also welcome. Deadline for all entry forms is April 13.

Arts and Culture Week is an event co-ordinated by the Oliver Community Arts Council for the promotion of its member artists and in celebration of local arts in general.  We are thankful for the generous sponsorship of Arts BC (Assembly of BC Arts Councils) and its affiliated partners: the Province of BC, the BC Arts Council, Art Starts, and the Community Newspapers Association. We are also grateful for our major local financial sponsors: the Town of Oliver, RDOS, and Oliver Parks and Recreation, for general programming and operating funds.

Shared History with Sister City Chelan, WA

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Many people in Oliver are aware we are paired with a sister city in Japan: Bandai.

But did you know Oliver also has a sister city just south of the border:  Chelan, Washington? What makes Chelan and Oliver “sisters”? What similarities in our history, peoples, and culture bring us together?  

Visit the Oliver Museum until June 15th to view the display designed by the Chelan Museum. The exhibit includes this old camera, once owned by a Chelan photographer, compared to Ansel Adams for his nature photography.  The exhibit also includes an array of attractive apple crate labels, and native artefacts.

Darryl Mackenzie, curator of the Oliver Museum, will be putting together a similar display for the Chelan Museum, to reciprocate in this cross-border event. Check out the Chelan Museum website here: http://chelanmuseum.com/

Hey! Did you know the Oliver Museum used to be the police detachment? Downstairs was the public offices and jail, and upstairs were the living quarters for the senior officer.  Check out the history of the building as well as the history and culture of our sister city. Darryl is full of fascinating  information, and just waiting for you to pick his brain!

Oliver Museum
9728 – 356th Ave., just north of Oliver’s Town Hall
museumdirector @ persona.ca
Museum Hours: 9 – 12 noon and 1 – 4 p.m. Monday to Friday

Don’t forget the Oliver and District Heritage Society AGM on Wednesday May 18, 7 p.m.  at the Quail’s Nest Arts Centre.  Geologist and artist Dr. Murray Roed is the guest speaker on the topic of “Roadside Geology”.  The public is welcome. See below for the full article.

Photo credit: Penelope Johnson

Assembly Conference – Here We Come!

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logoIt’s another road trip! The Oliver Community Arts Council is sending five delegates to the Assembly of BC Arts Councils 30th Anniversary Annual Conference in Kelowna on Friday May 1.  This conference always has excellent workshops on timely topics given by knowledgeable and helpful guest speakers. 

OCAC Treasurer Jack Bennest and Secretary Penelope Johnson are eager to glean some new programming ideas at “Programs and Projects from and for Small Arts Councils” on the Friday morning. “We deliver some  popular and fun programs, ” says Johnson, “but we can always do with a boost to our creativity.  We might find some innovative and cost-effective ideas to renew established programs or create new ones.”

Directors Brian Mapplebeck and Steve Staresina, together with Bennest, will take in An Intimate Dialogue with BC Arts Council . The BCAC, an arm of the provincial government, is a source of major funding for many arts councils. This session will provide delegates with valuable information to assist them in the preparation of a thorough application.  As guidelines change and funding sources become scarce, arts councils are hard pressed to make successful applications. The range of topics may include establishing partnerships and collaborations with community organizations, becoming more culturally diverse,  allocating surplus funds correctly,  applying for increasingly merit-based awards, and learning how to do critical self-reflection and succession planning. All three delegates to this workshop are involved in the various grant applications completed by the OCAC, and are sure to find these tools useful.

Culture, Creativity, Communications, Collaborations and Community attracted the attention of directors Jennifer Mapplebeck and Steve Staresina. This workshop is designed to provide guidance on how to launch and sustain a multiple-channel, multiple-stakeholder arts communication program. They will learn how such a program works, what skills and resources are required, what the components are and how they work together, and what outcomes are possible.

The OCAC is concerned about widening their contacts and services to include artistic groups from other cultures. With that in mind, Jennifer Mapplebeck and Penelope Johnson will attend Kwuksknkn’xtwixwa?x – “Working together with each other” . This workshop is a collaborative effort being undertaken by the First Peoples Heritage Culture Council’s Art Program and the En’owkin Centre. “Kwuksknkn’xtwixwa?x” will provide an opportunity to develop a broadened view of building constructive relations between the communities of the Assembly of BC Arts Councils and neighbouring stakeholders. Participants will work together to identify strengths, resources, and potential networks, and then brainstorm possible actions for building on those foundations in cooperative ways. This participatory workshop will include mapping cultural resources in the communities, and then generating an action plan inspired by those elements and forces

Brian Mapplebeck, who is also a member of the Oliver Sagebrushers, the local fine arts club (see our Member Groups section) is interested in attending Providing Community Visual Arts Services. The workshop focesses on how to make the visual arts thrive in a community. To provide the best services for a community and its artists requires that we understand the business of art as well as the creative process. Chris Tyrell, author of the new book, Artist Survival Skills: How to Make a Living in the Visual Arts, shares his insights in community visual arts programming best practices.

Johnson, Staresina and the Mapplebecks will all be attending the final workshop of the day: Cultural Tourism. Cultural tourism is a ‘hot’ topic these days, especially in the South Okanagan where the tourism industry is growing in leaps and bounds.  BC’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts is in the process of developing a Community Cultural Tourism Strategy. But can BC communities develop cultural tourism without degrading or devaluing the very culture they celebrate? And how can cultural tourism support the arts? This session will include an informational presentation, frank discussion, and workshop exercises to help define how tourism can be leveraged to support the arts in BC’s communities.

The five delegates will report on the conference at the next Arts Jam! meeting on Monday May 25th.  This gathering of the arts council membership is held every fourth Monday at 9:30 a.m. the Quail’s Nest Arts Centre. Come out to the meeting, or watch for  the Arts Jam! broadcast, including the special presentation from the conference, on local Channel 18 TV . 

CELEBRATE THE ARTS

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 In Oliver – Arts Council member groups and businesses will be participating in events across our community.

All Week Long:

Visit Handworks Gallery, 35648 – 97th Street, for a front window multi-media display celebrating Arts and Culture week and featuring the work of many of our members.  The Rip-Off Artists’ Klimtomania multimedia exhibit is running all month long at Handworks. Gustav Klimt’s famous full-length portrait Emilie is reinterpreted through the creative talents of several artists working in such diverse media as collage, felting, quilting, pen and ink, painting, and 3-D constructions. Reception on Saturday April 25 from 2 – 4 p.m. Come meet the artists and celebrate art and culture!

Paw Prints Studio and Gallery featuring the artistry of painter John Salsnek also celebrates Arts and Culture Week. Located at 148 Carr Crescent, Willowbrook. Open most days 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., call anytime 1-888-256-3600. Visit www.artofjohnslasnek.com for map and driving directions to this picturesque setting.  

 

 Saturday April 25:

♦ Reception for The Rip-Off Artists’ Klimtomania multimedia exhibit at Handworks Gallery, 35648 – 97th St.  from 2 – 4 p.m. Come meet the artists and celebrate art and culture!