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The 2023 Ignite the Arts Festival booted up this weekend with events and happenings across town.
It all began Friday evening with the unveiling of ten commissioned "mini" murals at Cannery Brewing.
The murals are the products of local artists, each of whom were paid $500 up front to cover expenses.
All ten four-foot-by-four-foot paintings will continue to hang at the Cannery until the fall, when they'll be auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Proceeds will be split evenly between Ignite organizer, the Penticton Art Gallery, and the artists.
The fun continued Saturday at the Ignite the Arts Art Walk, effectively a city-wide open house for art studios and organizations throughout Penticton.
The hot spot this year was the big parking lot adjacent to Aurora Matheson Fine Art in the 200 block of Martin Street, where Aurora owner Renee Matheson organized a combination sculpture exhibit, live painting exhibit, and sculpture-making contest.
By mid-day much of the 200 block of Martin was its own little festival within a festival.
In the midst of it all was Pentictonite Alice Strohmaier, perhaps best known for her role with Incredible Edible Penticton. Or Seedy Saturday. Or as a hardcore environmentalist.
With Strohmaier Saturday to compete in the sculpture contest were two of her fellow "Artsy Agers."
"We do Artsy Aging two days a week at Leir House," she said. "We do all different kinds of art, but never sculptures. So this is brand new."
The trio of Artsy Ages proceeded to construct a piece they defined as "something between an angel and a fairy" but what looked most like a toilet plunger at the very start.
"We don’t really have a plan," admitted Strohmaeir with a laugh, though the final result was quite impressive.
Also competing were the grandma and granddaughter team of Sharleen Lauzon and Jordyn Paul Lauzon. Indeed, the competed so well that they won the contest.
Just like they did in 2022, when the competition was held at windy Okanagan Lake Beach.
"It’s called 'Living Outside the Box,'" said Sharleen. "The idea came into my head where we'd do it with as much natural material as possible. So I walked around my acreage and found all the wood and figured out how it would happen."
Serenading the troops all day long was popular Naramata-based singer-songwriter Yanti, who had a variety of musicians and singers up there with her as the day unfolded.
More on Yanti and a cool new development in her singing career in a story later this week.
Also on hand for a time was Penticton mayor Julius Bloomfield. The City of Penticton and the Penticton Art Gallery are currently in the midst of a squabble over serious grant cuts announced just 11 days ago, and Bloomfield told PentictonNow he's "looking forward to our conversation with the Art Gallery on April 3rd."
"It'll be the first conversation we’ve we've had with them regarding their grant application," he added.
Competing with the parking lot on Martin as the place to be during Saturday's Art Walk was pottery studio Speckled Row in the Cannery Trade Centre, which also happened to be celebrating its first birthday.
The Speckled Row space is bright and spacious with tall ceilings, and the crowd wafted in and out for conversation, food and beverage all day long.
We spent a lot of our time watching potter Ellen Ramsay, who began the craft when former Art Gallery employee Carla O'Bee opened Speckled Row a year ago and is now so accomplished that she's selling some of her wares in the space's gift shop.
We'll have more on Speckled Row in a separate article later this week.
Meanwhile at the Penticton Art Gallery, a large group of artists in the Main Gallery put the finishing touches on a show that would open Saturday night.
"It’s about the bringing together of a variety of diverse artists," said spokesperson Cynthia Jim. "Their culture, their songs, their dances, their visual and audio expressions coming together like a confluence of rivers."
Jim is an instructor -- sculpture and creative writing -- with the En'owkin Centre National Indigenous Professional Artist Training Program. It is the focus of the spectacular new Main Gallery show.
"Our artists here are from all over," she continued. "We have some from Saskatchewan, some from Manitoba, some from Alberta, and some from all over BC.
"This is an Indigenous worldview program, where it really honours the diversity from tribe to tribe. We realize that that expression is not one universal voice. It's very distinctive. It's full of diversity and vibrancy from nation to nation."
Simultaneously in the Project Room Gallery, Syilx artist and Lower Similkameen Indian Band member Levi Bent opened a wildly vibrant show that can best be described as alarming.
Or enlightening. Or uncomfortable. Or just plain stunning. Probably all four.
Saturday night's Gallery crowd was as big as any in recent memory. It was a solid way to end the first Saturday of Ignite the Arts.
For more info on the festival, go here.
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