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Artist Lise Dagenais-St.Hilaire works on a 30-foot mural that will be on display on the weekend.
Artists' sale marks its 50th year
Benefit for WIAIH set for this weekend
Alycia Ambroziak
The Gazette
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Artist Lise Dagenais-St.Hilaire works on a 30-foot mural that will be on display on the weekend.
For half a century, the Lakeshore Association of Artists and the West Island Association for the Intellectually Handicapped have maintained a partnership through the art association’s annual art exhibition and garden party.
And this weekend is when that event takes place once again, for the 50th time.
“We do all the organizing so that the artists just have to arrive with their paintings,” Natalie Chapman, WIAH executive director, said last week, adding that WIAH staff, about 300 volunteers and one person hired on a short-term contract, puts the show together.
“It’s one of our major fundraisers, it allows us to carry on and even expand some of our programs. We’re happy to do it,” Chapman said, adding that the first collaboration took place in 1958 through the works of WIAH member Bill Grandon and artist John Collins, who was The Montreal Gazette’s first editorial cartoonist who worked for the paper from 1939 to 1982. He died last year.
“The artists were so impressed with the organization of that event, they said why not keep it going this way every year,” Chapman said.
One-third of all the artists’ sales are donated to WIAH and over the years, more than $1 million has been given to the non-profit organization that offers educational, leisure, accommodation and support services to handicapped people and their families in the area.
This year, many of the 50 artists who will be showing their works at the exhibition and sale, came together to create a one-of-a kind 30-foot long mural depicting different Pointe Claire scenes – with a twist as artists were allowed to add to each other’s scenes.
“It was a great group project,” said Lise Dagenais-St. Hilaire, a member of the artists’ association since 2001.
“For instance, I painted a scene of three elderly ladies sitting on a bench. Another artist came along and added a bottle of beer to one of my ladies.”
The mural will be officially unveiled Saturday at noon.
Rain or shine, the art exhibition and sale, where visitors can also take in local groups performing artists, take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday on the grounds of the Stewart Hall Cultural Centre in Pointe Claire.
About 5,000 people take in the show and sale each year.
For info, call 514-694-7090.
Local Olympians to be honoured
The 50th annual Lakeshore Artists’ exhibition and sale will pay tribute to two local Olympic medalists this weekend at Stewart Hall.
Thomas Hall and Emilie Heymans will be presented with paintings depicting their performances at the Games.
Hall, a Pointe Claire resident and member of the Pointe Claire Canoe Club, won a bronze medal at the Games. Heymans, who trains with the Pointe Claire diving club, won a silver medal.