The curious show of crows and more

There are some strange, novel and interesting thinks amok at the Visual Arts Gallery Association. The good news is that it's – hopefully – the first of many exhibits to come courtesy of the Society of Western Canadian Artists.

The better news is that the 20-some-odd visual artists who are participating in the show have done their level best to fill the space. Any visitor would be hard pressed to keep track of the number of individual pieces. To that end, you had best book off at least an hour, preferably two, to get a proper and thorough go-through of the show.

There is so much to look at and appreciate that the exhibitors have even created spaces within spaces. That is probably the greatest curiosity of all.

"The members have been working for a little over a year on the concept. In the early days, we were wondering if we would have enough work," laughed Rick Rogers, one of the exhibiting artists and the president of the society.

"Sometimes it takes people a little bit of time to get some momentum going. Once we had the momentum, all of a sudden there was a lot of work to choose from. There's a lot to look at."

Curiosity is a collective effort that should offer something for everyone. There are paintings of acrylic, watercolour and there's probably even some oil works in there somewhere. There are sculptures, mixed media works, and some pieces that can only be described as baubles. They look like Christmas balls with stamps of an unusual variety. Philatelic Fatality is probably not the title that I would have expected but local artist Val Solash seems to have found herself right at home.

These objets d'art can be found right next to a couple of small, round metallic jewelry boxes. One is adorned with ladybugs. The other has eyeballs embedded in sand in it. Not real eyeballs, mind you. This is an art exhibit, after all.

All of these curiosities are being watched over by a stuffed crow. Teresa B. Graham has always found them be extremely fascinating creatures with their keen senses of sight and hearing and their acute intelligence.

She confessed to a having "a little bit of a relationship" with a crow that would tap on her eaves troughs and look at her through the window while she painted in her studio. It and its mate had made a nest in a nearby tree.

Then she went on vacation, returning only to discover the crows had disappeared.

"The nest was gone. Everything was gone. I found out that our neighbours had hired a company to shoot the crows and shoot out the nest. It bothered me immensely. I had a few photos of him and so I felt, you know what, I'm going to immortalize him for myself."

She has a few watercolour crow works and they're all delightful and touching. One called Requiem shows a group of crows gathering around a dead friend on the sidewalk. Graham said that she has seen hundreds of crows attend these impromptu funeral services.

Keep looking around. There are cabinets with drawers (for the curious, naturally) to open up and discover more art or treasures therein. Local artist Julie Kaldenhoven has created some telescopes that hang from the ceiling. Look through them for even more intriguing art.

Madeleine Arnett has a Book of Drips that you can play with and Kathy Dyck has a series called Mechanathings created in watercolour with a Sharpie marker. Sirkka Kadatz seemed to be in the Halloween spirit with an encaustic work that features a moon. The list goes on.

The society

Based out of Edmonton, the 160-member strong SWCA offers the same kind of creative community as VASA. It provides a place and also promotes its members by organizing exhibits, just like this one. Its motto is "artists helping artists."

"The whole idea is artists of various levels working together to provide artists with opportunities," Rogers continued, adding that the membership mostly consists of painters but there are other visual artists including sculptors, potters and draftspeople.

Rogers' work in the show includes Insight Box, a sculptural "diorama" made out of wood and acrylic but seems to consist of glass or plastic. Rogers said that it looks "faux ceramic" and it's hard to disagree.

"It's a bit of a take on individualism," he explained.

He hopes that SWCA will take this show on a tour and possibly return to VASA with new work in the future.

"I think that, based on the success of this so far, that doing another show of a themed nature (that we can propose to especially public galleries around the province) is a good idea. It's exciting!"