Thirty-eight artists living in the region have taken the chance to show off – and sell – their artwork to the general public.
The Humboldt and District Gallery is hosting its Members’ Show from Sept. 11 to Oct. 31.
“The whole idea behind it was we have such a huge talent pool here in Humboldt,” said Catherine Harrison, a cultural programmer with the gallery, adding that most of the time, galleries only show off one or two artists at a time.
“That meant that a lot of really talented people were being left out either because they didn’t have enough work to do a whole show or whatever reason, so we really wanted to a give a voice and a space to showcase all of our artists and all of the talent we have here.”
One of those artists is Bob Pitzel, who does watercolour paintings. He got into the medium when he went to art school
“I just moved into watercolour from acrylics and some of the other mediums because of the discipline that’s needed. It’s a little more like oriental art where you do more high-level planning before you do any execution.”
He said when he was painting in acrylic, he kept reworking his paintings, something he found wasn’t successful in creating the art he wanted. Due to the transparent nature of watercolour paints, once its put down, it stays like that.
Pitzel gets his inspiration from his surroundings.
“You have to paint your world,” he said. “I look around here and it’s really quite invorating because people are slowly going back to working their art using subject matter they know intimately.”
Kimberley Dickinson, from Saskatoon, does glasswork. She got into it 15 years ago.
“My daughter was taking a music class and I saw something shiny hanging on one of the glass stores in Saskatoon,” she said. “I took a beginning class and I knew right away that I fell in love with it. Totally hooked. I liked the shininess of it.”
The challenge of that medium is it can be hard to manipulate the glass to come out with the desired result. Dickinson uses moulds and multiple kiln firings to shape the glass into what she wants.
This is Dickinson’s first showing at the Members’ Show. She became a member of the gallery at the suggestion of a friend.
“There’s lots of talented people here. More people should be here.”
Pitzel has been involved in the Humboldt artist community for decades. He said there’s been a solid core of artists for years, but the opening of the gallery has ramped things up a notch.
“It’s nice to see the quality of the work that’s here. There’s some really diverse applications. It’s great,” he said. “I think it's really unique for a community this size.”
