New Westminster’s arts community, as with arts communities across the country, is facing unprecedented challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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If you’re an arts lover sitting at home wondering how to help, here are a few ideas:
MAKE A DONATION
This one’s an obvious one: For those who are financially positioned to do so, a donation to the arts group of your choice will be more welcome than ever.
KEEP THOSE TICKETS
If you have tickets to a performance that’s been cancelled, why not hang onto them? Rather than seeking your money back, you can check with the organization to ensure you can keep the tickets and use them for any future scheduled performances. Or, simply turn the cost of the tickets into a donation to the organization.
BUY GIFT CERTIFICATES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
Although theatres have gone dark, it doesn’t mean you can’t buy tickets – for yourself, or as a gift. Many organizations (especially larger groups such as Arts Club Theatre Company and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra) offer subscription packages. You can buy now, and whenever shows are up and running again, you can enjoy the show.
SHARE THE LOVE
Many arts groups and artists are still active on social media. Follow them, and interact with their posts. Amplify their voices by sharing their posts to your audiences on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Start discussions about theatre, about art, about music, about literature – keep favourite memories alive and share plans for the future.
LISTEN ONLINE
Love music? Search out a local performer’s YouTube channel and watch their videos. Listen on Spotify. Better yet, buy an album. Musicians will keep on making music – you can play your part as an audience member by encouraging them to do it. Then follow your favourites on social media and, as above, share the love.
VIEW ONLINE
Love visual arts? You don’t have to go to a gallery to find art. Search out artists online – and, if you can, buy a work of art. You can make connections to artists through local websites such as 100braidststudios.com and www.vandopgallery.com.
TAKE PART IN FUNDRAISERS
It’s early days yet, but as artists and arts groups organize to start fundraisers, it’s a great way to support the arts and enjoy some entertainment in the comfort of your own home. For instance, local musical theatre performers are taking part in Do You Hear the People Sing? A Quarantine Cabaret to raise money for the Arts Club Theatre Company. See more here.
We’ll continue to follow local fundraisers and will bring you details as we learn about them.
PLAY YOUR PART
Help bring this whole COVID-19 pandemic to an end earlier rather than later by playing your part and observing all the now-familiar directives. Stay home. Go out for essentials only. When you must go out, be sure to preserve social distance by leaving at least two metres of space between you and other people. Wash your hands often and avoid touching your face. If you have any symptoms, stay home.
The sooner we can help to “bend the curve,” the sooner we’ll all be back to enjoying our local arts scene again.
If you’re an artist or arts group that’s organizing a fundraiser, or if you have other news to share, let us know. Email Julie, jmaclellan@newwestrecord.ca.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
