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Art
Blank canvas: Charity art sale making COVID comeback – Regina Leader Post
Art from the Attic — a donation-based art sale that raises money for charity — is set to return on Sept. 17 after a two-year COVID hiatus.
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Sherry Wolf believes that artwork should be seen to be appreciated.
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In fact, she’s counting on it.
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As one of the volunteer organizers behind Art from the Attic — a long-running charity event in Regina — Wolf is eager to help revive the annual art sale after it was cancelled for two straight years due to the COVID pandemic.
As the name implies, Art from the Attic relies on donations from the public. The pieces are sold for charity during a one-day event that runs Sept. 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre (2900 13th Ave.).
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There’s no entry free and the art is “priced to sell.”
The event is operated by the Regina branch of Grandmothers 4 Grandmothers, a national non-profit organization that partners with the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The Toronto-based foundation was created in 2003 to work with grassroots groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Funds are earmarked to support “grandmothers” raising a generation of children who’ve been orphaned due to AIDS and HIV.
According to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, it has raised over $40 million through the grandmothers campaign while contributing to 2,100 projects and 335 community-based organizations in 15 African countries.
The Regina group has been part of that initiative since 2006, but the arrival of COVID presented some unique challenges.
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“Like most non-profit organizations, we’ve all been struggling to try and do what’s normal for us, which is fundraise,” Wolf said. “It has been hard. We’ve had some creative ideas (to raise money online) … but it hasn’t quite been the same.”
If not for the pandemic, Art from the Attic would be celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2022. The Regina-based grandmothers are also closing in on $1 million in total charitable contributions since their organization’s inception.
“We’re well over the $900,000 mark,” Wolf noted “We do lots of small fundraisers so it’s a big deal for us to get close to that milestone. We’re hoping with this sale — or by early next year — that we’ll be able to do that. It’s exciting.”
In order to reach their goal, organizers are counting on people to make their artwork available for donation. There are four drop-off locations: Atelier Arts (2075 Albert St.), Benjamin Moore Elements of Colour (4350 Albert St.), Colourburst Paint and Wallpaper (551 Albert St.), and Independent Living (3870 E. Eastgate Drive).
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The deadline is Sept. 13.
“We typically get a push at the very end,” Wolf said. “We’re hoping more donations will come in. Our sale depends on the donations. It’s coming in but not as quickly as other years. It takes a while to get back in the swing of things.”
Art from the Attic only accepts two-dimensional pieces (no sculptures or pottery). Donations can be original artwork, prints, photos, water colour, acrylic, oil, metal art, fabric art, etc. — basically “anything that people are willing to donate to us that can hang on a wall.”
Before the artwork goes up for sale, it’s inspected, cleaned and refurbished (when necessary). That process might include replacement of the matting and frame to make it more appealing for potential buyers.
The end result is a piece of art that’s almost like new, even if it was gathering dust in someone’s attic.
“The Regina community is very generous with donations to us; I think people recognize it’s a good cause and it’s a way to recycle their art,” added Wolf, who expects the sale to be well-attended, if history is any indicator.
“People are (usually) lined up at the door on Saturday morning. People know it’s good art and there’s lots of great bargains. It has quite a bit of a following and we’re hoping that’s what happens this year.”
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What’s the deal with Leonardo’s harpsichord-viola? Why were Impressionists obsessed with the color purple? Art Bitesbrings you a surprising fact, lesser-known anecdote, or curious event from art history. These delightful nuggets shed light on the lives of famed artists and decode their practices, while adding new layers of intrigue to celebrated masterpieces.
From Just Stop Oil to Free Palestine to P.A.I.N., recent times have seen art museums coopted as staging grounds for high-minded protest.
In 2015, however, the group of protesters that picketed outside Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had a simpler, less lofty target: Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Their demand? That museums remove his paintings from their walls. Their reasoning was rather straightforward: they argued Renoir was bad at art. (A protest at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was soon to follow.)
The Renoir Sucks at Painting movement (if one can call it that) was the brainchild of Max Geller, and came to life after he encountered the sizable collection of Renoir paintings at Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation. Its central outlet is an Instagram account that features close-ups of Renoir paintings accompanied by satirical, often long-winded critiques.
Armed with snobbish hipster fury and signage that read “God Hates Renoir,” “ReNOir,” and “We’re Not Iconoclasts, Renoir Just Sucks At Painting,” the group briefly received considerable media attention—though none from the institutions it was heckling. Fellow Renoir haters expressed their aesthetic sympathy online by posting photographs of themselves giving the middle finger to Renoir paintings, often accompanied with the hashtag #renoirsucksatpainting.
Renoir haters outside Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Lane Turner via Boston Globe
The furor prompted Renoir’s great-great-granddaughter Genevieve Renoir to chime in. She argued the free market had spoken clearly in favor of her ancestor’s talent. The market said something that sounded like, “$78 million at Sotheby’s for Bal du moulin de la Galette na na na-na na.” Geller responded by saying the free market lacked judgement and taste, citing TV commercials, climate change, and the destruction of sea otter habitats as evidence. Fair enough.
This points to the deeper purpose of Renoir Sucks at Painting, one that was generally lost beneath the media noise and pithy takedowns. Geller wasn’t trying to censor Renoir through ridicule. He was hoping to force museums into reconsidering the artistic merits of the paintings on their walls and make change, ideally in favor of non-white male painters. He called it “cultural justice.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bathing Group (1916). Courtesy of the Barnes Collection.
Though Geller’s approach was decidedly contemporary, his root sentiment wasn’t. People have long hated Renoir. The loathing has both moral and aesthetic substance. On moral grounds, Renoir’s innumerable dumb-faced, unflattering female nudes have seen him posthumously charged with sexism. Adding to the ignominy was his anti-Semitism, as shown by his stance in the Dreyfus affair.
And yet even the aesthetic charges are somewhat personal. Renoir, a ceramicist by training, fell in with a Parisian clique that included Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet, anti-academic artists who would become part of the Impressionist movement. Bold color and depictions of modern life were in. Formalism, florid rococo details, and grand mythological scenes were out.
The problem was, Renoir quite liked these old things—“I am of the 18th century,” he once said—and when times got financially tough, he backtracked and began painting saccharine, bourgeois portraits. It made him rich, an international star even. In short, he’s seen as a sellout.
Critics argue Renoir paid no attention to line or composition (he painted as though on a pot, the charge runs) and ignored the contemporary concerns of his day. Most damning, seemingly, is the accusation that Renoir’s paintings are pretty. Good art, of course, cannot simply be pretty.
One fan of Renoir’s pretty little paintings? Donald Trump. He claims to own Two Sisters (On the Terrace). It’s a fake, mind you.
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Twenty-six years ago Mark Perry raised his hand at his son’s soccer practice and volunteered to fill in for the head coach the odd weekend — here and there — when needed.
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On Sunday, Perry accepted the Volunteer of the Year Award at the Owen Sound Arts, Culture and Volunteer Awards inside the Tom Thomson Art Gallery.
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“It’s funny how things can evolve,” Perry said.
Owen Sound Minor Soccer registered more than 1,000 kids last summer, and even though Perry’s children have grown up he’s still the backbone and president of the steadily run organization, his nominators said.
Perry is the Rogers TV Grey County station manager and said his day job constantly reminds him of how important volunteers are to Owen Sound.
“I see it every day,” he said.
The Owen Sound Arts, Culture and Volunteer Awards celebrate excellence in the arts, culture and heritage in the greater Owen Sound area. This year, the celebration event included awards for Volunteer, Youth Volunteer, and Senior Volunteer of the Year.
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Local poet, filmmaker and climate activist Elizabeth (Liz) Zetlin won the Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of work promoting the arts and climate action in the region.
“Lifetime kind of sounds a little bit like you’re done, but I’ve still got a few years left,” said Zetlin, who used part of her acceptance speech to promote and recruit volunteers for her new venture Pollinate Owen Sound, in partnership with the OPEN team consisting of the Owen Sound and North Grey Union Public Library, Billy Bishop Museum, Waterfront Heritage Centre and the art gallery.
Zetlin helped create the city’s poet laureate position and the Words Aloud festival. More recently, she produced, directed and edited the documentary Resilience
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Neyaashiinigmiing’s J.D. Crosstown earned the Emerging Artist award with a $500 cash prize. The singer/songwriter grew up in the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation with Cree and Ojibwe heritage. His music has roots in folk, country and blues and he’s fresh off a tour in Germany supporting local musician Matt Epp.
Raquell Yang won the Outstanding Individual Award. Originally from Taiwan, Yang is now a mainstay in the Owen Sound arts community where she mixes eastern and western styles in her brush paintings. She also supports the community with pop-up workshops and gallery events. Her best-known work is likely the impressive mural painted on the side of the Grey Gallery in downtown Owen Sound entitled Transformation.
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The Georgian Bay School for the Arts won the Cultural Catalyst Award and Dean McLellan earned the Cultural Heritage Award for work restoring the Saugeen Amphitheater.
Sweetwater Music Festival won the award for Outstanding Group. The Emancipation Festival won the award for Outstanding Event, and the Owen Sound Memoir Series won the Most Promising New Event award.
Sandy Stevenson won Senior Volunteer of the Year while Junior Optimist Shayla Adamson won Youth Volunteer of the Year.
Musicians Magenta and Simon Dawes provided musical interludes throughout the ceremony.
More than 100 people attended the ceremony inside the TOM’s North Gallery. MPP Rick Byers, Mayor Ian Boddy and several city councillors attended.
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Diana Meder from Grey-Bruce’s Bounce Radio was host for the ceremony. Performers from the Roxy Star Company opened the event.
To be eligible for an award, nominees had to live in the greater Owen Sound area and make a significant local contribution or a national/international impact.
Full-time city employees and elected officials are not eligible to be nominated, nor are posthumous nominations accepted.
The award’s jury is made up of previous event winners.
PAST WINNERS:
2022 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – Christy Eaglesham (Taylor)
Cultural Heritage – Potters Field Monument Volunteer Steering Committee
Outstanding Event – Georgian Bay Symphony Virtual Sessions
Outstanding Group – Reconciliation Garden Project
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Outstanding Individual – Tyler Boyle, Spirit Artist
Emerging Artist – Paige Warner
Most Promising New Event – Earth Day Grey Bruce
Lifetime Achievement – Shirley John
2020 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – Community Foundation Grey-Bruce
Cultural Heritage – Wiidosendiwag+Walking Together+Marchons Ensemble Tour
Outstanding Event – Scenic City Film Festival
Outstanding Group – Lookup Theatre
Outstanding Individual – Stephanie Fowler
Emerging Artist – Kevin Griffin
Most Promising New Event – Owen Sound Art Walk
Lifetime Achievement – Wilmer Nadjiwon
2018 winners:
Cultural Catalyst – R. Michael Warren
Cultural Heritage – Maryann Thomas
Outstanding Event – 42nd Annual Summerfolk Music & Crafts Festival
Outstanding Group – Georgian Bay Symphony
Outstanding Individual – Steve Ritchie
Emerging Artist – Chris Morton
Most Promising New Event – Awesome Sydenham Riverfest Extravaganza
Lifetime Achievement – Stephen J. Hogbin
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