Doti Niedermayer, executive director of the Whistler Arts Council (WAC), envisions the new site opening up a “whole new world of possibility” in terms of bringing local artists and artisans into the village. And without adding significantly to WAC’s already stretched operating budget.

“I’ve seen the design go through some changes and some various additions,” Niedermayer said. “I’ve kind of had an idea of what we’d want to use it for, and also what the arts community would want to use it for. For us, that’s always been really exciting because given that it would be a space that is run by the municipality, we would be able to implement things like a Thursday night farmers market or craft fair.”

Each of its two sculptures, naturalistically proportioned but ominously enlarged depictions of male and female English sparrows, stands 5.5 metres high, about the size of a perching pterodactyl—a really cute pterodactyl. Constructed out of painted polystyrene over steel frames, the sculptures startle, amuse, then confound. The effect of their scale, ultimately, is to make us think about the huge consequences of introducing a foreign species into a delicately balanced ecosystem. Launched in late May, the work was commissioned as part of the City of Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program, and speaks to the sustainability theme of the Olympic Village development.

The multilevel partnership of funding bodies dispersed $800,000 for its last installment. It has given a total $6.2 million across the province in the past three years for groups to create new work as an artistic legacy spun out of the Olympic Games.

The Vancouver Art Gallery received one of the highest amounts, $90,540, for Monument to East Vancouver artist Ken Lum to create two large-scale new pieces. They’ll be central to a planned survey of his work. Ken Lum: Mirror Maze With 12 Signs of Depression and House of Realization.

Another 90 grand is going to Neworld Theatre to develop James Fagan Tait’s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyesvsky’s The Idiot for the 2012 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

Presentation House Gallery and the B.C. Photography and Media Arts Society received $82,000 for Cedric Bomford and collaborators to create a major new public artwork.

The $10,000 prize, handed out every two years, is given to an emerging designer in Canada who demonstrates creative talent as well as a sensitivity to arts and crafts, the decorative arts and architecture. The prize was established in 1990 by colleagues and friends of Thom, a Canadian architect, as a tribute to his life and work.

Arbel was also co-designer of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic medals.

In support of arts and cultural festivals, a community can be provided with up to $50,000 (dependent on the size of community) which will be used towards community festivals in February for the celebration of the anniversary of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The BC Spirits Festival program falls under the 2010 Sports and Art Legacy and is the first arts program that has been announced thus far. This legacy is designed to grant $30 million over the course of three years towards different art and cultural projects which affect British Columbians.

Golden will be applying for a share of the $3 million.

“For us it’s a really nice fit,” Executive Director of Kicking Horse Culture, Bill Usher, says. “We already have the masque parade which is in February. We will keep on doing that, but with extra support.”

The Gathering Place, a community centre primarily for low-income people, had provided them with six Canon Powershot 8480 digital cameras and a handful of photography lessons, along with instructions to go out and document the Vancouver they knew.

The resulting images range in effect, from a rusted fire escape outside a worn, brick building to a towering Inukshuk against a vibrant multi-coloured sky illuminated by a setting sun.

A collection of 18 images from nine photographers will be presented in a photography show titled “Random Perspectives: February 2010,” on June 25-30 at the Gathering Place Community Centre on Helmcken Street. An opening reception will be held Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m.

The tour, “ARTful Vancouver BC: A Cultural Journey of Olympic Proportion,” showcases Vancouver’s visual and performing arts, culture, and the Olympic legacy that has transformed the city. The reservation deadline is Aug. 1.

Designed for arts enthusiasts, the tour offers a diverse palette of visual and performing experiences highlighting the paintings of Canada’s renowned artist and writer Emily Carr, the totem gateways of Salish artist Susan Point, the monumental carvings and metal work of Haida Master Bill Reid and the First Nations Dance Troupe of Michael Dangeli.

The tour will be led by arts educators and ARTrageous directors Barbara Sobo Gast and Saralyn Hilde. ARTrageous Adventures, the arts-education outreach travel program for adults with the Corvallis Arts Center, was established in 1992 by Gast at Oregon State University.

The Olympic’s economic impact may not be fully felt for more than a decade according to a new report released by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest auditing firms in the world.

The governments of Canada and British Columbia both made commitments to the success of the 2010 Olympic games. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has been commissioned to create a comprehensive study of the games economic and cultural effects starting in 2008 and continuing through to 2013.

…The commissioned study will take into account over 200 other studies, articles, and books that address the various impacts of the Olympic games.

Some notable reports that will be considered are post- games studies of both the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and a pre Olympics assessment of the upcoming London 2012 Games.

The report will study eight interrelated areas covering, sport development, tourism, environmental sustainability, social development, arts and culture, economic development, employment and business development.

Some effects will be tangible and immediate, such as its impact on the International Olympic Committee and other Olympic Games organizing committees. Others will be more intangible and may take months or years to come to fruition.

“I don’t want to put words in (the IOC’s) mouth,” said Burke Taylor, executive producer of the Cultural Olympiad, “but I can characterize what they were saying to me: They really discovered what a Cultural Olympiad could be. We’ve literally set the bar for future Games, particularly for Winter Games.”

Taylor said while Summer Olympic Games such as Sydney in 2000 organized an impressive Cultural Olympiad, it wasn’t as comprehensive, inclusive and accessible as Vancouver’s, which stretched not only over 60 days this year but also took place over similar durations in 2008 and 2009. Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad included artists from across the country, had a national touring component and used the Internet like never before.

“The IOC took notice of all of that,” he said. “Over and over again I heard people saying: ‘You can’t turn around without bumping into the Cultural Olympiad.’ They were reading about it every day in the media, seeing the marketing and the celebration sites. People were talking about it because they were experiencing it — and they were having a ball.”

…But the Olympics have increased his visibility by orders of magnitude, and the trailer-park-raised poet is taking a conscientious approach to the platform that—because of its broader implications—he “waffled” over accepting. Within minutes of answering the phone, he’s talking about the B.C. Liberals’ arts cuts.

“Reimagine the opening ceremonies and cut 90 percent of the artists involved,” he says, sighing. “It makes no sense. And it’s like, honestly, do they assume that the arts are going to be there the next time? Do they think the arts community is going to step up to the plate? I don’t think it will.”

He even suggests a strikingly simple form of protest. “I think we need to shame them,” he says.

They are not, their creators stress, about being disabled.

The Paralympic Games begin tomorrow, and art exploring the disability experience is very much in evidence in Vancouver’s continuing Cultural Olympiad. But the people behind these shows say it is essential that the physical challenges of the protagonists, stars and/or creators do not overwhelm the subject matter of the works.

“We have disabilities, but it’s just a landscape,” says James Sanders, 39, the Maple Ridge, B.C., resident who stars in Spine and collaborated on its creation.

“There’s two characters with disabilities in this show and yet my character’s really not interested in his disability; that’s not his problem,” says Sanders, who is quadriplegic. “It’s the fact that he realizes he’s getting old; he didn’t have his shit together relationship-wise.”

The 43-year-old artist began training in the early ’90s, apprenticing under the great Rick Harry (Xwa Lack Tun) as a second carver for almost 12 years. In that time, the teacher encouraged a young Nelson Moody to find his own distinct style. What he discovered, however, was actually a return to a traditional, graphic style of art, using those old simple, bold, clean forms from the Salish.

“Our stuff is considered a little simpler sometimes, but very, very graphic,” Nelson Moody explained. “It’s quite hard to do. I tend to think of it as a black and white photograph; it’s maybe a bit more abstract, but also quite a bit more graphic.”

Traditionally, carving provided a unique signature to possessions and created a sense of pride and ownership.

“From Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man to Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual, a massive two-floor survey of works from our permanent collection showcasing significant British Columbia art and artists of the past century, these numbers verify that we hit the mark with our dynamic and ambitious program,” said Kathleen Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery . “Culture was at the heart of these Olympic Games, and, now more than ever, Vancouver is seen as an international art centre. This success serves as a catalyst to create a more significant and expanded facility for showcasing the more than 10,000 works in our collection, as well as the major international exhibitions that the Gallery continues to bring to this region.”

Visitors were lured by free admission, courtesy of the B.C. government, and two blockbuster shows — Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man and Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual.

Lineups wrapped around Robson Square as thousands of visitors toured Vancouver. The fourth floor of the art gallery housed the B.C. Pavilion for the Games.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, showcases Leonardo da Vinci’s artistic and scientific investigations of the human body, featuring hundreds of sketches. It is on loan from the Royal Collection in the U.K.

Visions of British Columbia: A Landscape Manual is an exhibit focusing on British Columbia art and artists, drawn mainly from the gallery’s own collection.

Free admission is also being offered during the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, March 12 to 21.