Bidding ends Saturday

Saturday, August 27 is the last day of the silent auction at SAGA. We will close the bidding at 3:30pm amidst iced coffee and frenzied art-lovers. It's a fun end to this particular exhibition - and bittersweet. This was the last Paint the Town, although we may re-invent it somehow in 2013. We will continue with Paint the Festival, because our festival artists are so keen and enthusiastic. We're just not sure how those works will be displayed in 2012. Can't think that far ahead... still trying to get the word out about the silent auction. It was only a week that the festival works were up, so not quite enough time to generate buzz. Oh well, I guess a few people are going to get some serious bar-goons.

Roots and Blues and Jack

My beautiful natural high following this past weekend's Roots & Blues Festival was brought harshly back to earth with the news of Jack Layton's death this morning. The wrenching of the heart when listening to the harmonies of the Sojourners was much the same as realizing the only political force with which I felt any affinity was gone. Barely time to contemplate, to grieve. Then, off to the gallery to receive the work of the artists who poured out their souls onto canvas over the past three days. With each painting that arrived, I felt close to tears with the sheer rawness of their energy - each piece found a way to say something of humanity, of sharing, of love, of the universal language of music. It all comes back to the same thing - we're all in this together. Culture isn't just art, music, theatre... it's what we are together, as a whole. Working in the arts sector, I'm lucky enough to be reminded often of this concept. I'll miss the one political leader who actually stood up and declared this as his platform. May we be so lucky as to see another Jack Layton in our lifetime.

Gaming Again?

I received an interesting phone call last week. A representative from BC Gaming called to inform me that our children's programs qualified under new eligibility requirements for Direct Access funding. I could apply and receive up to a third of what our gaming grant used to be. I was reluctant to say the least. We've spent the last three years recovering from the loss of those funds, slowing gaining stable funding from other sources and feeling quite proud that we had weaned ourselves off of a less-than-ethical source of revenue. It's a lot of work putting a gaming grant application together. With limited resources, how do I justify spending that time with no guarantee there's something at the end of it? And only a third of what we used to get, which really wasn't all that much. There were just so many questions, but really only one answer. When someone calls you and says "apply for some money, please," well, all politics aside, you just do it. The application went into the mail today.

Readying Oneself for Performance

I can't say that I know what any actor feels like, about to go on stage, petrified about live recall of rehearsed lines and an audience who is judging every tiny movement. However, this Saturday I will be on a similar display at "Paint the Town." I've had cause to think about this, since we have only a dozen artists willing to paint en plein aire in this final year of the event. After seven years, I figured all of SAGA's artists would be well used to painting in public. Many are already happy to, but so many more are not. After a discussion with one artist who has participated twice in the past and explained the sheer terror and then the massive pressure of producing something for exhibition, I realized that perhaps I'm different. I never thought of this process as "performance," but some do. And some suffer so badly from stage fright (read: fear of being judged) that they are unwilling to do the thing they love in front of others. I will miss this event, as will many Salmon Arm citizens and business owners. It's well loved and looked forward to by many, including young aspiring artists.

Touch Points

A marketing guru, I am not. However, tonight I just added a new tool to my marketing tool box. I'm pretty excited. Touch points are anything that touches your brand. At SAGA, our brand is "public art gallery striving for high ideals, inspiring our community and being open and welcoming to all." Decisions we make about products we use are all touch points - things that affect how people perceive us. The reason this topic came up is because of the coffee we serve. As a non-profit organization with limited funds, the decision to continue to purchase locally roasted Shuswap Coffee Co. beans was questioned. I was surprised by this because I have always felt that we vote with our dollar and if we expect locals to support us (which they do, thank goodness) then we need to support them. Plus it's darn good coffee. When people attend jazz nights, opening receptions and the once-a-month Coffee Break, we want their experience to reflect our ideals - good quality local stuff. And so, we will continue to purchase and serve the excellent coffee roasted, ground and delivered by Tara and her gang. Plus, I now have a sound marketing reason for doing so.

Measuring Impact

We may never know the impact that an exhibition has on a young person. In my years at the gallery, I only strive to ensure that everyone feels welcome there - all ages, all areas of interest, all economic abilities. One just hopes that the education and exposure provided to our visitors makes for a better community overall. I got a tiny bit of evidence of that last night. My daughter, who will be turning 11 later this month, was working with plasticene. She sculpted a crooked tree, and said "Look, I made a crooked tree like in the gallery." Wonderful, I replied. Then the explanation came. "It's a birch, you can tell by the white bark. These branches swoop down and will grow along the ground. All sorts of creatures can live here, because there are so many nooks and crannies." And then, she played. Just pure imaginative play for about an hour, sculpting blue and purple cats that climb trees and lounge on the branches with their plasticene tails hanging down. Of course I pride myself in raising two kids that can play imaginatively for hours on end, but knowing this scenario was rooted in the exhibition, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment, that I had impacted a young life with a spectacular colourful show about some crazy crooked trees in Saskatchewan.

Those Crooked Trees

Dr. Bill Remphreys gave a wonderful scientific presentation tonight on the crooked trees that are the subject of the current exhibition. How fascinating that someone was so intrigued by this little forest (which is actually one organism) that they would spend a dozen years studying it. It was great to sit there surrounded by Ken Dalgarno's bold, textured paintings with a scientist giving the other side of our brains something to chew on.