Low Down Articles
In the Hills
Article 7 of 18
This article first appeared in the "In the Hills" column in the September 17, 2008 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
20 years of courage, commitment, art
by Catherine Joyce
Twenty years ago the Artists in Their Environment Studio Tour began. A group of young moms with little children, bent on keeping their artistic dreams alive, gathered to make art known in the Hills.
The first meeting took place on a twig settee on the lawn of Cordula Podehl's home in Farrellton. In the weeks that followed there were endless phone discussions as a roster of enthusiastic local artists joined the original triumvirate of Denise Atkinson (felt artist), Cordula (sculptor), and Sheila Helferty-Lacharity (oil painter) - Janice Moorhead (glass), Norma Geggie (weaving), Carol Froimovitch (pottery), David McKenzie and Maureen Marcotte (pottery), Nicole Ferand-Lewis (horticulturalist), Paula Murray (pottery), Louis Rompre (candlemaker), Rick Ritza (painter), Jean Rutka (pottery). Within a year other well-known luminaries came on board: cj fleury, Marie France Nitski, Joan Sutherland, Phil Jenkins, Thoma Ewen, and Gunda Lambton.
Sheila Helferty-Lacharity designed the memorable Tour logo of converging mountains and flowing river, which is still in use today. Cordula came up with the name, "Artists in their Environment".
CBC TV interviewed Denise in her kitchen as she prepared a "felting" experience for her visitors, little realizing that 1,000 people would soon come trooping through her Lac Bernard studio in the pouring rain. Despite the weather, the first Tour was an exhilarating success.
In the early years artists asked to join and were easily welcomed. As the numbers grew, a laid-back jury system (a slideshow evening of good food and wine) was instituted to make the Tour more manageable. A more formal system of visiting and vetting artist studios soon followed.
Before computers, the work was done by hand, a fun exchange of friends stuffing envelopes and licking stamps around the table at the McKenzie-Marcottes.
Over the years the preparation of grant applications and signage, of securing support from local businesses with paying ads and lining up sufficient media - coverage has increased the pressures of organizing the Tour.
Work now begins nine months ahead of the September event with every detail covered by artists who are also striving to develop and exhibit new work.
Not to mention cleaning and setting up their studios for unknown numbers of fans. It is often an exhausting roller-coaster of challenges.
And what, in the opinion of its creators, has the Tour achieved? Public education ranks high on the list - even for their own children growing up and witnessing the dedication of their parents to their craft. From these small, local beginnings, so many of the originals have continued their lives as artists, becoming in the process role models for the next generation who need to believe that such an achievement is possible.
The Tour has rescued solo artists from isolation, given them the courage to open their doors to a supportive public and helped them to tryout new ideas as they share their vision. It provides a window on the creative process of fellow artists, drawing them together into a richly diverse community.
This year, as you go on the rounds of the studios in the Hills, think of the work that has gone into this experience, of the years of commitment, and of the courage of these artists who are determined to achieve that precarious balance of life and art.