WHAT: MADE
WHERE: Pemberton Community Centre
WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 26, 8 p.m. - midnight
Sea to Sky is rife with creative types. This is not a secret. We love our creative types. They keep life interesting and between Whistler and Squamish, there's been no shortage of events celebrating the wares of our artists.
But what about Pemberton? Rarely do we hear about Pemberton. We hear rumblings about a diverse pool of artists and musician living in the shadow of Mount Currie, but who are they? Where are they? Why are they?
We demand answers and we will get them this Saturday at the fourth annual MADE event.
MADE (an acronym for Music Art Dance Energy) will encompass all the creative avenues that Pemberton has to offer, from music, to painting, to jewelry making to cooking.
We're trying to fill the community centre with art," says Pemberton Arts Council (PAC) chair, and event co-organizer, David Moldofsky.
Four years ago, the PAC members decided Pemberton needed its own celebration of hometown art. Because the offerings were so diverse, they opened the call for submissions to basically anyone doing anything creative.
So, around 50 people signed up - visual artists, musicians, winemakers. Needing all the space they could get, the PAC rented out the entire community centre. Bands played. Pemberton Valley Vineyard donated their wine. People drank and danced and were merry, and the evening culminated in the single largest celebration of Pemberton's arts and culture up until that point.
And it's been growing every year.
"I think people are really aware of it and we're getting more and more people," says co-organizer and PAC vice chair Lynn Pocklington.
This year there will be live music all night in various rooms throughout the community centre - including Deadly Papa Josh & the Funk Patrol (a collaboration between Papa Josh and DJ Deadly), local soul duo Anita Burleson and Tom McCoy, Suzanne Wilson, Carolyn Christie, the Pemberton Orchestra and the K Family Band - while artists and artisans show their work. There will also be several chefs on hand, along with Schramm Vodka, the famed potato vodka from the Pemberton Distillery.
"This is sort of (about) everybody coming together," Pocklington says.
"Everybody participates in different shows all over but it's nice for us all to come together and sort of show off what we have here locally. That's what it's all about, just supporting each other. It's a good time, it's right before Christmas, so there'll be lots of stuff to look at to purchase if you want to."
But while there will be art for sale, David Moldofsky says the evening is more about the party than the sale. They host other events throughout the year that are about the sales but, for one night every year, the town needs a celebration. A let loose and get goofy kind of night.
"It's kind of along the lines of Artrageous where...it's about experiencing art rather than selling art," he says.
And, like Artrageous, MADE is a 19+ event. In 2010, the PAC introduced a children's component before the main event, where children could participate in arts and crafts while entertainers performed, but that has been cancelled this year.
Admission is by donation. In past years, MADE was funded by government grants but this year, PAC is all on their own. The blood and sweat of the PAC members and other creative individuals will literally be lining the walls of the Pemberton Community Centre this weekend.
