Island Gallery
Cast into a nomadic state by the sale of our previous home, the membership of the Island Gallery decided embrace change and find our walls where walls were available. With that in mind we booked a pair of shows at the Community Hall, essentially group shows that beautifully fulfill our mandate to showcase island artwork and to make it available to the public as a tangible demonstration of our incredible talent pool here on the Rock. On top of that we will be taking over the Arts Resource Centre (the ARC), the Arts Council gallery for a month from mid-July to mid-August.
At the same time we applied to the Co-op for the rights to use the old Gas Bar building as a mini-gallery at the Ringside market, a space which, though tiny, has the benefit of being right downtown. Our understanding was that an environmental assessment had to be done on the soil where the old gas pumps were, and that that would take at least a year. Much to our surprise the building was suddenly moved, a lawn planted, and we were granted the rights to the space. All of this happened in the last of May, and by the first of June we were told to go ahead and get started, and could we please be done with the renovation by the first of July?
That gave us under a month to completely refurbish the old trailer, to make a silk purse as it were, and in record time. Four long work-party days as well as lots of individual focused energy and the bulk of the transformation was complete. The challenge is to find space to fairly represent our nearly fifty artist members in under 200 square feet. We will obviously be thinking small, at least in terms of the sizes of the individual pieces. Our ideas will remain lofty. Come by and have a look at the offerings of our island artists and then, thoroughly enriched by your exposure to the arts, have a seat on the deck and watch the world go by.
Old Island Gallery
Have a look at our old gallery building.
