Being a tax-paying community member of this great city of St. Albert, I would like to throw in my two bits about St. Albert’s Arts and Heritage Foundation.
I am just one of many artists who resides here and benefits from the beauty and culture this city provides. It nourishes my soul, strengthens my mind.
It’s a place to explore and feel grounded, a place that lets your mind create new possibilities and learn from our past, a place to feel accepted yet discuss our differences.
We have some of the best dining here, coffee shops, fairs, festivals and farmers’ markets, baseball diamonds and swimming pools, hockey arenas and soccer fields, parks, trails and playgrounds, schools and museums with awesome teachers, places to share our faiths and build communities.
I can go on and on and in a lot of ways it’s what anyone would expect from a healthy community, but there is one big difference — all this stuff is surrounded and encased in art, art that beautifies, that reminds us of who we are and who came before us. It’s art that celebrates us as a community. This city provides tons of opportunities to cultivate our kids with its many programs, not to make little artists out of our kids, but to train their eyes and minds to see and be creative. If there is any thing that separates humans from the beasts it would be the ability to be creative.
Back in the days the school boards made the big cutbacks, art and music were some of the first things to go. I don’t know if you remember how much art there was in school if you were a kid from the ‘70s. You just have to compare those schools that have an art teacher with the ones that did not (walls were practically bare, very institutional-like). One thing I love about this city is that the Arts and Heritage Foundation has really picked up the slack in this area. It’s not that we as taxpayers are bearing the load on this. Those who work for Profiles and the other sites earn low wages or are volunteers. They organize fundraisers and charge parents small nominal fees. As a taxpayer, it’s such a small investment compared to what those who are involved are willing to put out. I know most of the people who work for the Arts and Heritage Foundation and they truly love this community.
Every time I go to Europe I am reminded that the beauty of those cities comes from art.
As an artist I don’t rely on the city for my living. As an artist I have received very little to nothing in terms of income, but have received lots of support and if anything, the city itself inspires me and makes me want to be a great artist.
Lewis Lavoie, St. Albert
