The Artist Run Centre creative studio has 13 talented local artists.
They are Sherron Burns, Rosemarie Stadnyk, Joanne Wing, Chris Hodge, Eleanore Sunchild, Mary Ann Baxter, Marlene Yaqub, Kamila Badura, Michael Brokop, Amanda Fisher, Mary Culbertson, Joe Campbell and Barb O'Neal.
Each of these artists has a designated working space to facilitate the creation of art. In the entrance of the studio is a small gallery space. Gallery Hours for the summer are Tuesdays and Fridays from noon until 4 p.m. The gallery may be open at other times when artists are working and feel comfortable having visitors. Signs are out when the gallery is open.
Please drop by when downtown and view current works. The studio is located at 1106-101st St.
Mary Anne Baxter
I have been image making all my life. My prime media of expression has been drawing, but I have also done textile printing, painting, lithography and assemblage.
There are visual relationships and shapes that I continue to focus on. Once I begin to investigate an idea or image I see the same forms and shapes everywhere. The process of imagery manipulation heightens my visual awareness and appreciation of everything around me. I am particularly interested in the contrast of order or structure and chaos or randomness in both nature and in human-altered environments. I also love to investigate the subtlety of shadow and light, the intrinsic qualities and beauty of materials and the interconnectedness of two- and three-dimensional space.
For me art is a private, therapeutic and meditative activity.
Michael Brokop
Creating art has been an integral part of my being. I created works since I can remember, from creating illustrations for assignments in grade school, to taking art classes in high school and going to university and having been a part of a fourth-year graduating class in my third year of studies to become an art instructor. I have been a high school teacher, educational administrator, university lecturer and curator prior to my current mask-making vocation.
I have been rewarded with a compassionate wife, loving children, grandchildren and a few friends.
Three years ago, while working as the curator of the Chapel Gallery North Battleford, I had the fortune of taking a weekend class on mask making. Now retired and never having spent much time on dimensional art, I embraced this new media with great therapeutic vigour and forged ahead in a two-year mask making exploration process creating some 90 masks. Some of this work was featured at Chapel Gallery with other mask makers, and in the Kerrobert Court House Gallery.
The mysterious quality of masks complimented with the joy of fabrication has led me to creating wearable masks that have provided me with great satisfaction. It is exhilarating, joyful, painful and uplifting process that balances my life to accept getting older, understanding physical limitations and escaping to an inner self. Wearing a mask in itself brings out the hidden personality of an individual, brings forth a time to reflect deeper, be someone else or see things from behind a barrier of culture.
My impulse and desire to create masks is overtly influenced by the histories of my identity and my desire to make myself visible, as all artists. The greatest joy is finding others who either admire your creations or decide to own a work created by you.
