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foe u s Regional Arts Festival in the Works by Ann Macklem Hard to believe but (rue! It is almost time tor the 1994 Images & Objects Exhibit and artists on the North Shore, as elsewhere in ihe province, are busy getting their work ready for submission to their regional art shows. The coordinators of these shows are also hard at work preparing for this year's B C Festival of the Arts (to be held in Campbell River, M a y 25-29). Works for Images & Objects (the visual arts component of the provincial festival) are chosen by jurors who travel to regional art shows coordinated by community arts councils. (Images & Objects itself is coordinated by the Assembly of B . C . Arts Councils.) Submissions to these regional exhibits can number up to 300. and it is incumbent on the arts council of the host community to solicit and coordinate these submissions, find an appropriate exhibition venue, install the works, publicize the event, and then in some cases (as on the North Shore), organize a second, albeit much smaller, exhibit of the selected works. Pulling this off year after year can be quite a feat, especially for those arts councils-- like both the North and West Vancouver Community Arts Councils--that have only one or two paid, paxt-time staff members. Perpetually strained budgets and lack of suitable exhibition space have given these regional exhibits a "church basement" feel (sometimes quite literally), one that does not adequately reflect the calibre of the art in question. Ultimately, if community cultural development is the goal, such exhibits inevitably sell the public and the participating artists short. In view of this, the North and West Vancouver Community Arts Councils arc trying something different this year. Arts councils from the North Shore have joined forces with arts councils in the Howe Sound area, forming a new, "Sea to Sky" region, comprising Squamish. Whistler, Pcmberton. Mt. Currie, Bowen Island and the Sunshine Coas. Now under one umbrella, these communities have decided to go all out and mount a regional minifesdval of their own. What used to be the North Shore Spring Juried Art Exhibit has blossomed into Visual Edge 94. an entire festival weekend with visual art exhibits, film & video screenings, workshops, performance art. live entertainment and plenty of networking opportunities. Admittedly, this docs involve even more work, but because more communities are participating, they are able to pool their resources. To this end. a committee was struck, with representatives from all the arts councils in the area. The committee hired a regional coordinator. North Vancouver Community Arts Council staff person Irwin Oostindie. who will work in collaboration with them. Oostindie will not only be handling the pragmatics of Visual Edge (securing the venues, programming the workshops, etc. I. but--in the weeks leading up to the submission deadline--he will be launching cultural development initiatives to encourage participation from artists in some of the outlying and typically less well-represented areas of the Sea to Sky region. Oostindie w ill also be doing his best to encourage more film and video artists to participate than have in the past. The host community will rotate each year (as it does for the B C Festiva] of the Arts). v ol a t the lity. Each community will now only have to "put out" every five years, as opposed to once a year for either North or West Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast, and they will be able to begin planning and fundraising well ahead of time. This also means that each host community in turn will have a chance to benefit from the potential for increased tourism and from the immense cultural development that an arts festival inevitably engenders. Visual Edge is the first project of the newly-declared Sea to Sky region. Everyone I spoke with in the course o researching this article was extremely excited about collaborating with their partners. But what I was curious about was how they had come together, what it was that they had in common and what it was that distinguished them from other communities. While he couldn't really speak to the psychological affinities of the region. Oostindie did surmise that regional economics had a role to play: "the whole history of North [and West] Vancouver is of logs coming from those mountains, through the valleys [and Howe Sound] and down into Capilano and the waterfront." How exactly industrial and cultural heritage become intertwined is difficult to articulate, but it is clear that the communities in the North Shore/Howe Sound region have more in common with themselves than they do with Vancouver or Chilliwack. It will be interesting to see i f any kind of a local aesthetic or shared heritage emerges from the submissions. For interested artists, the deadline for submitting the Intent to Enter form is February 4th. Please see page 15 for entry criteria and the jurors' statement. Actual submissions can be brought to a North Shore drop-off point, the Anne MacDonald Hall, on Thursday, February 10th (from noon to 9 pm) & Friday, February 11th (from 10 am to 1 pm), or to the Sechelt festival site itself on the evening of February 11th. (There will also be a central drop-off point for Squamish/ WhistlerlBowen Island participants. For details, consult your local arts council. Bowen Island: 947-2273; Squamish 8984880; Whistler 932-2119.) Please contact \our local arts council for an entry form or for more information. The North Vancouver Community Arts Council can be reached by phone at 988-6844 or by fax at 988-2787; the West Vancouver Community Arts Council can be reached by phone at 922-1110 or by fax at 922-8924. The works selected from the Sea to Sky region for Images & Objects will be exhibited at the Silk Purse from March 22nd to April 3rd before going on to Campbell River. 94 The scenic Sunshine Coast plays host to Visual Edge in 1994; the festival is being held in Sechelt from February 11-13, at the Seniors Centre, the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre and Rockwood Centre for the Arts. Artists are encouraged to arrive on the Friday evening. The jurying takes place on Saturday, as do a whole slew of workshops. Participants will listen to a panel of owners and operators of community galleries, private galleries and artist-run centres in the "Marketing Your Art" workshop; they will attend sessions in which artists will present profiles of themselves and discuss the concerns that inform their work; they will hear first-hand from the jurors about the jurying process; and they will learn about such varied topics as community organizing and portfolio development On Sunday. Visual Edge wraps up with a critique/review by the jurors (Jin-me Yoon and Keith Wallace). The scope of this event is a far cry from that of previous qualifying shows on the North Shore. Artists will have a chance to meet and to actually spend time together, comparing notes, impressions, experiences. They are no longer simply dropping off a piece one day and returning two days later to pick it up. The sense of community, of celebration and of shared experience that has been lacking in previous years is now the key ingredient And. as Oostindie points out. "ironically, while we're talking about cultural development and these public shows, we're also really talking about getting these artists' work seen by the public so that it can be sold. We're marketing the arts in a new way." Audiences are apt to turn out in larger numbers for a festival than they are for an art show--and especially so if it va that already has a lakes pia the summer months. Secheli plays host to the well-attended Festival ol the Written Arts: in 1995. it is hoped that Visual Edge could be held at the Whistler Convention A m A c c . . . J*i»/Feb 1^44 5