Community Art
Pecha Kucha
Local Co-ordinator and Emcee | Gibsons, BC , 2012 & 2013
At a Pecha Kucha night, participants tell stories, all kinds of stories. What’s unique about Pecha Kucha is how the stories are told Each person shows 20 images and can speak about each one for 20 seconds only. The results can be moving, beautiful, informational and hilarious.
I was the local coordinator for two years. This included creating marketing materials such as posters and emails, budgeting, creating the automated slide shows used in the presentations, and emceeing each of the shows. Here are a few you can watch.
Random Acts of Art
Co-creator and Facilitator | Gibsons, BC, 2012 & 2013
This project was a collaboration and fund raiser for two arts organizations, The Arts Building and The Gibsons Landing Gallery. Participants were asked to choose a number between 1 and 150. Each number was associated with a random, somewhat ambiguous phrase. Once they got their phrases participants had 24 hours to create a piece of art on an 8×10 piece of mat board. We asked them to tell us about their experiences and we also asked them to give a one or two-word bio for themselves—my favourite being 6-year-old Archie who described himself as “Nevin’s Friend”. The pieces were collected and displayed in the two locations during the annual Sunshine Coast Art Crawl and each piece was for sale for a mere $25.
There was amazing participation each year for this with 138 people the first year and 161 the second year. This in a town of 5,000 and a larger community of fewer than 20,000.
I created posters and emails to promote, helped come up with the phrases, and tracked who had which phrases. Because I kept records in a FileMaker database, all the material we used to print packages for the artists and all material displayed with the pieces were printed directly from the database.
The Salmon Run at the Salmon Festival
Creator & Facilitator | Gibsons, BC, 2008 & 2009
As part of the Gibsons Landing Salmon Festival, I created a public art project using plywood salmon 4 feet long and 18 inches high. Participants could purchase a blank salmon for $20 and decorate it any way they liked. We asked people to name their creations, which were hung during the festival and auctioned off. Proceeds went to the local merchants association to help facilitate programs during the year.
Again, a very successful event with broad participation from highly respected regional artists to toddlers at a local day-care centre. All records were kept in FileMaker, which facilitated tracking participants and printing materials that accompanied each piece.