A weekend walk with Art

Just like the spring robin, the Edmonton Gallery Walk is making its annual springtime appearance.

The country’s very first gallery walk runs along the capital city’s popular 124th Street area and features seven galleries this weekend only. Each of them are set to host special events including artists in person while their works hang on the walls or stand on the plinths.

The Lando Gallery’s Brent Luebke said that the art world thrives on 124. When he was looking to move five years ago from its original spot from 111 Street along 105 Avenue, there wasn’t much for him to really debate about: stay close to where the action is.

“Certainly, 124th Street has always been known as the gallery row for a number of years. Having already been around for over 10 years, we decided we wanted to be somewhere else for more than 10 years, so we set up here. In the meantime, all the other galleries that were on Jasper have had to move,” he said.

The Lando is now the southernmost fixture point on the Gallery Walk’s map. It’s basically the signpost that says, “Welcome to Artland.”

“We’re very excited about being in this area. There’s just so much happening here.”

Joining in on this weekend’s art-full adventures are the galleries named The Front, Bearclaw, Bugera Matheson, Peter Robertson, Scott, and West End.

There are actually 11 galleries throughout the busy shopping district, along with a host of some great multicultural restaurants, cafÉs and other shopping hotspots. That’s probably why it’s such a destination for residents and even tourists from all over. There’s a strong contingent of Australians who love the strip too. “They’re here to experience winter. They’re coming to see the art. They’re coming to see all the galleries,” Luebke said.

The Lando represents 35 artists who produce original pieces for sale, while there is also a strong secondary market for artworks to be resold through its sister company called Lando Art Auctions.

One of those 35 is Kristine McGuinty, the painter and photographer who is also a member of the Visual Arts Studio Association. Luebke calls her the “poster child” for being a professional fine artist, and typical of the Lando’s artists: “somebody who’s not just come out of art school, not just trying to figure out what they want to do, somebody who’s very much established in their own life professionally and personally.”

She is one of the four featured artists, along with Holly Burghardt, Carole Malcolm, and Adele Knowler who will be offering an artist’s talk to discuss her latest body of work honouring Canada's 150th birthday.

McGuinty says that, even if she wasn’t one of the stars of the show, she loves the Gallery Walk for its smorgasbord-style approach to offering something for everyone, even people who might be a little art-shy.

“What I would find as important, especially for someone who loves art or is curious about art, when there’s an event like an ArtWalk, it’s an incentive because now you’ve got all the galleries showcasing certain artists. It’s a time to see a whole bunch of art at the same time during an ArtWalk,” she said.

St. Albert’s Sarah Ainslie is another one of the special artists whose works can be discovered and cherished for the first time this weekend. It was more than three years ago when she attended an aboriginal hide drum workshop at the Michif MÉtis Cultural Museum. She also made drumsticks and found herself yearning to continue making more.

Since then, she set up a home studio that she calls The Drum Room. Her work: Drum Touchers. Having only realized her aboriginal heritage in 2004, she feels honoured to be able to pursue her craft and to be able to showcase it at the Bearclaw, Edmonton’s pre-eminent aboriginal arts gallery and home to works by such esteemed creators as Daphne Odjig, Norval Morrisseau, Alex Janvier, Jane Ash Poitras, Roy Thomas, Maxine Noel, Jim Logan, and Aaron Paquette.

One such Drum Toucher, she showed me, took nearly 700 hours to complete. The extrinsic value of something like this can only be estimated from that amount of time and care and natural materials such as feathers and a variety of leathers and pelts, plus thousands of seed beads and more. The production of each item is indeed intricate and laborious. The intrinsic value of the objects also bears the scrutiny of any astute cultural and investment appraiser as Swarovski crystals dance among the beads and other decorations on these unique pieces.

“These take such a long time that, in the last two years, I’ve only managed to get one out per year. It’s six months of non-stop working.”

With the support of the Bearclaw and the public who patronizes the galleries along 124 Street, especially through these Gallery Walk events, Ainslie is able to further develop a highly specialized artform.

“Because there’s no referent, no nothing, you need to invent everything you do,” she said.