Victoria arts
Victoria: Culture Days take centre stage
The Greater Victoria Public Library is accepting applications for musical performers of any age or style to compete for an opportunity to perform during a month-long celebration in September. The GVPL Central branch courtyard will be alive with music every Saturday afternoon in September during Culture Days, a nationwide celebration of the arts. For more [...]
Victoria: Shaw gift boosts Carr fund $100,000 donation puts campaign near goal for statue of noted artist
A $100,000 donation from Shaw Communications has moved the Our Emily campaign closer to its $400,000 goal of a bronze statue of artist Emily Carr. “I was speechless,” Anne Geddes, president of the Parks and Recreation Foundation of Victoria, said when told about the donation. The foundation, which is spearheading the campaign, first approached the [...]
Victoria: Unknown thief targets Salish pair’s carvings, Separate break-ins net two valuable pieces
Coast Salish artists Luke and John Marston complete every one of their carvings with steady precision and careful attention to the traditions of their ancestors. Which is why the theft of two of their valuable pieces — collectively worth more than $60,000 — from two downtown Victoria art galleries in the last four months feels [...]
Victoria: Full class led to cross-cultural festival, Japanese fan-painting master leads trio who will work with local artists
It was six years ago that Victoria painter and art writer Robert Amos tried to sign up for a fan-painting workshop held at a local gallery by visiting Japanese artist Sugimoto Hiroshi. But Amos was out of luck. The renowned painter’s workshop was fully booked. So he took the situation into his own hands, inviting [...]
Victoria: Carr show features rarely seen early work: emi-permanent exhibit includes loans from galleries across Canada
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria celebrates the art and life of Emily Carr, with the opening of a new semi-permanent exhibition called Emily Carr: On the Edge of Nowhere (now on display). “Here, in Carr’s hometown, both visitors and residents have long expressed their desire to explore more of Carr’s life and art at [...]
Victoria: Opera loses director to Calgary: David Shefsiek to become head of Alberta Theatre Projects
The loneliness of a long-distance relationship has Pacific Opera Victoria searching for a new executive director. After four years, David Shefsiek will leave the opera in mid-September to become managing director of Calgary’s Alberta Theatre Projects. “The decision to accept this new position in southern Alberta was not easy, but will ultimately provide a better [...]
Fringe organizer outraged, hurt by province’s reason for denying funding: Letter refusing grant argues festival doesn’t reflect community
Victoria Fringe Festival organizer Ian Case says he’s not surprised that the BC Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch has shut the popular festival out of grant money this year. But the reason cited in a letter from the province has outraged him. “Fairs and festivals that do not reflect the community, regional or cultural characteristics [...]
Gaming branch denies $42,500 application from producer of Victoria Fringe Festival
The primary B.C. government arts-funding organization, the provincial gaming policy and enforcement branch, has denied an application from the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival. The Intrepid Theatre Society has been producing the popular Victoria festival for 23 years. Intrepid’s general manager, Ian Case, told the Straight that his organization applied for $42,500 in gaming funds. In [...]
Victoria: Museum brings its insides out: Be a scientist for a day at the new Behind the Scenes exhibit
As workers and curators clamber around to transform the 10,000-square-foot space that makes up the Royal B.C. Museum’s latest exhibition, Kelly Sendall, the museum’s manager of natural history, crouches beside a frighteningly realistic mounted grizzly bear. “What a fine-looking specimen,” jokes head designer Ken Johnson as he hurries past to a nearby display. As its [...]
Opera for a sex goddess: Sooke poet’s words about Marilyn Monroe become libretto
The creation of a new opera, a big deal even in a major musical centre, counts as a very big deal in a moderate-sized city like Victoria, especially when the stature of the artists involved, and the subject, guarantee it will attract international attention. Such is the case with Anyone Can See I Love You, [...]
Liberals cut the arts adrift: Cancellation of festival funds and new youth policy make little sense
Things just seem to get worse for arts and culture in Victoria and the rest of British Columbia. I’m not talking about the quality of the offerings, which often reach artistic levels that delight and surprise. Rather, it’s our provincial government’s mulish insistence on pretending the cultural industry in B.C. no longer exists. The Liberal [...]
Artist suing Crown corp over management of Victoria parking lot
A Victoria artist is suing the provincial government and a Crown corporation over management of public space near the capital city’s harbour. Dean Lewis filed a notice of claim May 19 in provincial small claims court seeking $25,000 for damages, costs and loss of income. The claim says the Provincial Capital Commission said “unreasonably and [...]
Victoria artist could paint Queen’s portrait
Victoria’s David Goatley is one of a handful of artists being considered to paint an official portrait of the Queen to celebrate the 60th year of her reign in 2012. Goatley, who has painted headmasters and chancellors, New York firefighters, captains of industry, First Nations chiefs, folk singers and even a prime minister, was recently [...]
Victoria: From stage to studio: Kaleidoscope boss joins media he used Shakespeare to skewer
If you were to use his production of Macbeth as a reference point, you might say Leslie Bland is crossing to the dark side. After serving 10 years as artistic director of Kaleidoscope Theatre, Bland is stepping down to launch Less Bland Productions, a television production company that has entered into a broadcast partnership with [...]
Needle collection, hip-hop CD among projects getting Victoria grants: City of Victoria hands out $87,000 in 19 ‘special project’ contributions
Everything from needle-collection programs to youth recording a hip-hop CD received funding from the city of Victoria this year through special-project grants. As usual, the city received far more applications for funds than it had money to grant. Twenty-nine applications were received totalling more than $240,000. The city’s corporate services committee ended up giving at [...]
