Other winners include textile artist Ruth Scheuing for craft and design; Blue Water Cafe executive chef Frank Pabst for culinary arts; Cease Wyss (Indigenous Plant Diva) for Film and New Media; photo-conceptual artist Christos Dikeakos for visual arts, sculptor George Norris (whose sculpture The Crab can be seen outside the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre/Museum of Vancouver) for public art; Carmen Rosen, founder of Still Moon Arts Society and the Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival for community arts; Co.Erasga founder and artistic director Alvin Erasga Tolentino for dance; and percussionist Sal Ferreras for music.

It doesn’t have to mean even working at it from a young age in an attempt to create perfection. An artist can be born at any age, any time, anywhere. And that’s what Sharon Bamber has found out about herself.

From a career ranging from landscape architecture, sport management, zoology and finally pastel painter, Bamber has taken the road less travelled in finding her love of painting.

Forty-three years old, Bamber’s only been truly painting for four years now, which is roughly the same amount of time she’s lived in B.C. However, in just a few short years, Bamber has already won several national awards and an international award for her work.

“Artists have always been on the forefront of conservation,” said Jeff Whiting, founder of Artists for Conservation, the Vancouver-based non-profit organizing the online exhibit. “This a great example of art in action. All of the artists featured in this exhibit are lending their talent to support wildlife and habitat conservation and to celebrate our natural heritage.”

Lara Haworth and Nicole Cormaci created the Woodhaven Customs and Border Patrol project at Woodhaven Conservancy in Kelowna.

Any individual wishing to enter Woodhaven must fill out a visa application and carry that document with them at all times during their visit.

If they are discovered to have broken a visa stipulation, they will be subject to deportation.

He was just shy of his 60th birthday.

Simpson was born in Jamaica, grew up in Toronto, and eventually became a Vancouver fixture.

A man of many talents, Simpson was one of the founders of the Toronto a cappella group The Nylons, was an accomplished choreographer and even wrote plays, including his successful one-man show Denis, Anyone?

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television has announced that Coghill, 83, will receive its 2010 Humanitarian Award. As co-founder and honorary president of — and resident in — the Performing Arts Lodge (PAL), Coghill helped create a landmark building that provides affordable housing to performers and others in the performing arts.

Goatley, who is widely regarded as one of North America’s leading portrait painters, was born in London, England, and trained at London’s Camberwell School of Art before settling with his family in Victoria, BC, in 1992. For the past 18 years, he has travelled the globe fulfilling more than 300 commissions.

Some of Goatley’s most notable portraits are of artists Robert Bateman and Ted Harrison, folk music legend Valdy, the internationally acclaimed tenor Richard Margison, Speaker of Parliament Gilbert Parent and Prime Minister Kim Campbell. Goatley’s work can also be found in corporate offices, private homes, galleries, churches and public landmarks, including the Chemainus Post Office’s mural ‘Letters from the Front’ in Canada’s world-famous Mural Town.

Mayor Gregor Robertson presented the $2,000 prize to editor Scott Steedman at a city council meeting Wednesday. Steedman, a freelance editor and author, shares the award with Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator Bruce Grenville, who chose images for the book.

Visual artists such as Robert Davidson, Emily Carr, Frederick Varley, Jack Shadbolt, Gordon Smith, Jin-me Yoon, Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall are represented in the book. All the images are from the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery and were displayed in the show of the same name at the gallery from January through April.

Larsen has been awarded the designation of Premier Pastellist with the Pastel Society of Canada, and has been specializing in equine art. She has been working on her anticipated 21-piece RCMP Musical Ride Series for three years which is meant to be a statement of Canada’s national pride and identity.

Kirkby is a prolific artist known for his paintings of the Canadian North and the ancient aboriginal stone symbols inushuks. His 12 foot high by 152 foot-long painting Isumataq, was unveiled in 1992 in the House of Commons and is said to be instrumental in ratifying Nunavut. A replica will be at the exhibit along with some of his other west coast and Canadian inspired paintings.

Presenting New Westminster Artists:
Internationally recognized Leslie Poole draws on years of experience to create works of deeply felt emotion. Poole’s paintings, drawings, and prints question life and art through subjects as diverse as: male and female figures, still life, landscape, and self-portraits from realist to expressionist in style.

Angie Au Hemphill’s art is inspired by love, life experience, and the nature around her. “Painting for me is personal and my goal is to make a connection with viewers. If I can enlighten others I have succeeded” (Hemphill). The work 65 Red Roses, inspired by Eva Markvoort, is one of the highlights in this year’s New Westminster Cultural Crawl.

Nicholas Bott loves the scenic beauty of the BC landscape and spends many days on remote mountain slopes, some locations accessible only by helicopter. His work has evolved continuously to his current impressionistic style, with images both vivid and compelling.

The piece is a mix of spray-paint and charcoal pencil, the scrawny artist explains to a backpacker at the patio’s fence. It’s a combination he clearly employs regularly, evidenced by black-stained hands and a generous-palette’s worth of overspray splattered on his baggy brown cords.

Many of the pub’s patrons – some conversing in foreign tongues – ignore him. Others offer a glance and a disinterested shake of the head. None of the body language gets lost in translation: pitcher not picture.

Upon closer inspection, however, the piece – a dark, desolate view of an alley – is skilled and intricate. On the bottom of it, scrawled in charcoal: “K. Foster”.

Emily Carr’s statue will overlook one of the city’s most popular tourist areas, which includes the stately Fairmont Empress Hotel.

The larger-than-life statue shows Carr with two of her most famous sidekicks — her pet monkey Woo sitting on her shoulders, and her mixed breed dog Billie, standing near his master.

Hirst, believed to be the wealthiest artist in the world and for years the enfant terrible of the British art world, found what he was looking for at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery on South Granville. After initially picking up few pieces Northwest Coast art, Hirst moved on to a commissioning a sizable project from the gallery.

By the time it was completed in November 2008, the commission had grown to include five 10-metre totem poles, several smaller totem poles and bent boxes and a number of panels, all of which were shipped to England. Gallery owner Douglas Reynolds wouldn’t reveal its total value, but put it between $2 million and $5 million.

The Creative Chaos Society recently elected its 2010/11 executive, including chair Ingrid Baron, vice-chair Herb Fox, past chair Barb Setter, co-treasurers Marg and Jim McGillivary, secretary Gwen Bartram and director Betty Anderson.

“Creative Chaos also includes a great board of committee heads and numerous wonderful volunteers,” said Baron.

Planning us underway for the 36th annual Creative Chaos, which runs from June 3 to 5.

“I gave it about 30 seconds of thought,” he recalls.

Yellowlees, whose chosen media is sculptural ceramics, and Trent, a multimedia artist who works with clay, cloth, and more, unveiled their joint exhibition at a reception at the Olde Courthouse last Friday. The show runs until the end of October.

Although Trent has displayed her art in the past, the show was Yellowlees’ debut.