Artist Michael Jorden is one of a number of artists with a wall to show his work at the Okanagan Art Gallery. (Richard McGuire photo)
The Okanagan Art Gallery has been showcasing local artists from its Main Street location since the end of August, but now it’s inviting the public to its official opening next week.
Tucked away in surprisingly ample and well-lit rooms at the back of a former office building at 8302 Main Street, the gallery shows the work of 23 artists who are members of the co-operative.
The gallery has been transplanted from Oliver, where it operated for four and a half years as the Oliver Art Gallery.
The official opening will take place on Friday, Oct. 16 from 4 to 8 p.m., but the gallery will be open during the daytime prior to the event for its regular hours of 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays to Saturdays.
Michael Jorden, secretary and one of the featured artists, said refreshments would be served.
“We’re thinking about having a paint-off, which in Western art circles is called a ‘quick draw,’” said Jorden. “It means three or four of us will set up easels in different rooms and probably paint for about an hour and at the end of that time we’ll have a more or less finished impromptu piece of artwork and we’re thinking we may auction it.”
Though lacking some of the details that might be in a medium-sized painting taking 25 to 40 hours, these fast works can be quite delightful and freer in style, Jorden said.
The gallery is located at the end of a long hallway lined with paintings, extending back from Main Street between Shoe Biz and A New Leaf Tea Room across the road from Shoppers Drug Mart.
The gallery has six rooms, each with a skylight, giving it an open and airy feeling.
With so many rooms, there’s also a lot of wall space to hang paintings. And there’s a larger room at the back used both as a display area and potentially for other events such as art classes.
Jorden said the Okanagan Art Gallery is quite different from the Osoyoos Art Gallery up the hill, and the two galleries are complementary. He is involved with both.
The Osoyoos Art Gallery is a community resource in a facility owned by the town, he said. The Osoyoos Arts Council operates out of the facility, which is run by volunteers.
The smaller Osoyoos Art Gallery runs a different show approximately every month, changing the entire exhibition each time. Some shows feature visiting artists from elsewhere, but most feature local artists.
In contrast, the Okanagan Art Gallery is a co-operative that displays its members’ work with each artist allocated roughly one wall of space. Artists change the works they display when they sell a piece or simply to keep their display areas fresh.
“It’s a continuous process,” said Jorden. “Since the beginning, we have set ourselves the task of rotating our own art fairly frequently.”
Artists who are members of the co-operative have been juried to become members.
Under artist and curator Carmen Tome, the artists ensure that artwork displayed is of a uniformly high quality, Jorden said.
Steve Staresina, one of the artists, is the co-operative’s president, Sandra Albo is vice president and Jane Scheffler is treasurer, a task she also performs for the Osoyoos Art Gallery.
Jorden believes it will be viable to run the Okanagan Art Gallery year-round, although the tourist season from May to mid-October is obviously critical. The fees the artists pay for membership keep the gallery open, he said, noting that sales have already been good.
Major resort hotels are fully booked for the next three winters, he said, noting that although the snowbirds who stay in the winter don’t buy a lot of art, they do participate in community activities and may be interested in art lessons.
“I’m excited about the idea of getting snowbirds through there and developing teaching programs that would be appealing to them,” said Jorden.
The move from Oliver came about when the artists were negotiating a new space in a former provincial government building.
The negotiations were taking a long time and the space had limitations, Jorden said. At the same time, a member observed that Osoyoos Art Gallery was getting much more walk-in traffic than the old gallery in Oliver.
“There’s no question that Osoyoos has more people in the street,” said Jorden. “It has more tourism.”
While Oliver has many wineries and wine tourism, fewer people get out of their cars to walk the main street, he said.
“I’m sorry in a way because we all like Oliver and we were happy being there,” said Jorden. “It’s been four and a half years trying to make it work and we gave it the old college try. But at the end of the day, we were fortunate to not only find a place that we could afford in Osoyoos, but one that was on the main street and is perfectly suited for a gallery.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
