What's Happening at the Art Scene

The house was filled with rich jazzy music while a lady contentedly sketched in the background and a group of men in the kitchen talked about a range of things from art to hunting. People laughed and talked, met new people and enjoyed the music and art.

This month’s Art Stream Open House was also a blast, yet totally different from the previous one. This time it was held on a Friday night and there was almost an entirely different crowd. Around 25 in all. At seven o’clock I was wondering where everybody was, while at the same time I was glad I could quickly finish cleaning up before people started coming. Soon enough people started streaming in, helping themselves to refreshments and chatting, meeting up with old friends, neighbors’ and developing brand new relationships and connections.

One eleven year old girl who came was inspired to do a painting. “I don’t have a lot of time to paint lately,” she said, “because of school and other activities.” We got her some paints, an easel and a canvas and she went to town painting a bright red sky with a pink textured ground, and finished it off with a blue hand print in the sky. It was fun to watch how free she was in her painting expression, all the while the band played in the background.

 

Shauna Hart started off singing her song “A Mother’s Heart” which was written for the Friesen family, who’s two year old son Cash is dealing with brain cancer. People were touched by that song in particular. We all appreciated and enjoyed the music and many expressed their appreciation of Shauna’s beautiful voice and the talented musicians. Later on in the evening a friend sang along and I made a shaker instrument out of my porcelain pomegranate by filling it with uncooked macaroni and joined in with the band as well.

One family stayed long past what they intended, “This place has such a restful atmosphere,” the husband said as he leaned back into the couch, “I don’t even want to leave.” Most people left after ten, while a few stayed and talked until 12:30am.

Did you know that some of the art displayed in the Loewen Art Green Scene has never been publicly displayed before? At first I was surprised to hear that so many gifted artist’s were quite hesitant to display their art. But as I thought about it, it made sense to me. A person’s art is an expression of something inside of them. It is putting a voice to something that would otherwise be left unheard. It is putting your heart on display for the world to critique. That can be a very scary thing.

Here is a safe place for emerging artists to bring their art and know that it will be appreciated for its uniqueness. I believe one artist’s work should not be compared to another artist’s work. Really, every work of art is extremely unique and personal. One should only be comparing what they did today to what they did last month or last year, and from there work to improve themselves.

To all the hidden artist’s out there, consider bringing a piece of your art to display at the Loewen Green Art Scene, and let your unique voice be heard!
And make sure you join our ‘Art Scene’ Facebook page – share links and ideas with other artists, upload photos to critique one another’s work and find out about upcoming opportunities with the Arts! Just type ‘Art Scene’ into the search bar on your Facebook account (choose the one with the 306 Reimer Address).
Submitted by Cheryl Nickel, Resident Artist