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Art Beat: Whistler Artist Guild launches Web site

Since its inception approximately one month ago, the brand new Whistler Artist Guild is gaining steam, continuing to meet on a bi-weekly basis and launching a Web site (www.artinwhistler.com).

The guild aims to organize Whistler’s visual artist community similar to existing organizations like the Whistler Photographic Society or Whistler Writers Group, said founding member Duane Perrett, a glass blowing artist with a studio/gallery in Function Junction.

The guild has so far attracted approximately 25 members, Perrett said. Membership is open to visual artists and art advocates in all mediums from the Sea to Sky corridor. While Perrett and Expressions Art Studio and Gallery owner Ivana Ilic have spearheaded the formation of the guild, there is no official administration as of yet.

Perrett says Whistler’s visual art community needed to organize in order to present common needs and goals to organizations like the Whistler Arts Council and the Whistler Farmers Market, as well as for marketing purposes.

"Everyone has said it’s a long time coming and it’s time to get focused," Perrett said.

Whistler Arts Council president John Hewson called the guild "an awesome and much needed initiative."

"Just being organized as a body helps us communicate, which works both ways. The artists can collaborate and present a common set of needs and requests, and the community can communicate via the Arts Council or direct with the guild.

"We have many great opportunities ahead, so the better organized we are, the more professional an impression we can present to the community, our visitors and the world," said Hewson.

The Whistler Artist Guild’s next meeting is Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. at Expressions. For information go to www.artinwhistler.com.

Cancellation gives Naturally two months at MY Place

Normally the art exhibitions in the theatre foyer upstairs at MY (Millennium) Place change on a monthly basis.

Naturally

, the current exhibition by local painters Theresa Mura and Barbara Hirano, will go for two months due to a cancellation of December’s intended exhibition.

December’s halls were to be decked with photography by Whistler-based Skier Magazine editor/adventurer Leslie Anthony. The space’s volunteer curator Helga Ruiterman, herself a painter under the nom d’artiste Marielle , cited scheduling conflicts with Anthony in advance of the show as the reason for the cancellation. Insufficient time to arrange for a replacement prompted the one-month holdover of Naturally .

MY Place’s monthly exhibition schedule will resume for January 2005.

Marielle at Plaza

Marielle’s work is part of a special exhibition this Saturday, Nov. 13 at the Plaza Galleries . The afternoon event also features works by Kal Gajoum and, in the spirit of the weekend’s Cornucopia Festival of Wine and Food, tastings by Victoria Estate Winery.

Art film series continues

The Gallery at Fairmont Chateau Whistler

continues its weekly afternoon art documentary film series this Wednesday, Nov. 17.

Modern and Abstract Painting in Canada

was produced by the National Gallery of Canada and examines the European avant-garde influence on works of Canadian art from 1900 through the 1930s. The second part of the film is said to contain "radio, television and film footage showing Canadian artists discussing the roots of their interest in abstraction as well as their individual approaches to it."

The second film, Canadian Landscape, is a National Film Board documentary that accompanies painter A.Y. Jackson on canoe and hiking trips in the Canadian North.

The films will be screened at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. For more information contact the gallery at 604-935-1862.