The Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society Tuesday announced its first round of arts grants approved by the Central Cariboo Joint Committee and Cariboo Regional District, Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Function.
A total of 15 grants were awarded totalling $25,000.
• The Cedar City Museum in Likely receives $1,045 to continue the process of expanding the amount of historical information in its archives, compiling a list of families and businesses, and research/documentation of the museum’s artifacts and history.
• The Community Arts Council of Williams Lake receives $3,000 to increase capacity and enable sound preparation of provincial grant applications and enhanced support to member groups.
• The Boys and Girls Club of Williams Lake and District received $1,500 to reinvest and build upon the youth-driven magazine Timed Reaction with submissions including poetry, stories, songs and many forms of artwork. They would like to reintroduce elements that have previously worked (Art House Coffee events), and enhance the publication to meet the target audience’s current style of communication (electronic).
• Canadian Mental Health Association received $2,000 to help create a community cookbook celebrating Williams Lake’s diverse ethnicities through culinary arts.
They will be inviting the community to participate by submitting a traditional family recipe and a story about their cultural background.
The goal is to build a more inclusive community by learning a little something about our neighbours. Once the cookbook is complete, they will have a community potluck dinner.
• The Cariboo Art Society received $2,000 for a one-week workshop with Victoria printmaker Jenn Robbins. Participants will learn the basics, embossing, collograph, and solar-plate etching. Robbins will also provide a public presentation at TRU for the public on the history of printmaking. The CAS will then share what they have learned at their annual Christmas show and sale by inviting the public into their studio to try their hand at creating an original hand-pulled print.
• The Cariboo Friendship Society receives $630 for Let’s Sing Together with Angela Sommer of Angelkeys Music Studio teaching 12 one-hour choir and vocal group sessions during July/August to the children in the House of Youth Afterschool and Summer Daycare program.
Participants will learn to sing, move to music and play rhythm instruments in a group setting, allowing children to participate who would otherwise not be able to attend a choir or singing group.
• The Cariboo Potters Guild receives $425 to host a three-day workshop with pottery experts Keith and Celia Rice-Jones on sculptural techniques using clay slabs in the making of geometric, organic and wall sculptures.
The workshop finale will be open for public viewing.
• The Horsefly Historical Society will receive $1,800 to assist in preserving the museum’s oral history by digitizing 100, one-hour voice cassettes made in 1977 during interviews with local pioneers.
• The Horsefly River Roundtable Society will receive 2,000 to host the Horsefly River Salmon Festival Sept. 1 to 3 celebrating the annual return of the Horsefly River Sockeye run. The event also provides watershed education through community arts activities and helping people understand their connections to water and fish habitat and how to make behavioral changes to protect streams, rivers, lakes and oceans.
The festival will include: the Horsefly Heritage Museum, children’s arts and crafts tent, partnership with Xat’sull First Nations to demonstrate traditional fish drying techniques, elder stories, and traditional drumming, a traditional folk dancing workshop and an evening square dance with live caller and music by the Romeros.
• The Likely Community School Association will receive $2,000 to run a two-week Theatre Day Camp in late July and August which aims to create a “dream” to pair with the Potato House Project’s “Potato Dreams” project about Likely’s own past and future with the youth of Likely and area with a possible performance in Williams Lake.
• The Potato House Sustainable Community Society receives $2,000 for the Potato Dreams Collective Community Theatre Project.
Groups and individuals are invited to create a “dream” with a message of sustainability to form a play woven and mentored by Debra McNie into a final production including music, dance, visual media and performed by people from the community at the Potato House and other sites around the city and regional district.
• The Station House Studio and Gallery Society receives $2,000 for an installation exhibit during July and August by Edwin Janzesn called Conspiracy Case, a study of the Columbian ground squirrel, based on speculation that mammals who live in colonies are pre-conditioned to conspiracy.
• The Williams Lake Central Business Improvement Area Association will receive $2,000 for a one-day event and competition called Back Alley Art Scene to mark the start of the annual Art Walk.
Artists will be invited to submit proposals to take part in the competition and to reproduce their art on a wall in a back alley in downtown Williams Lake, therefore beautifying back alleys and reducing graffiti.
• The Williams Lake Field Naturalists/Scout Island Nature Centre will receive $1,100 for a program called Mentoring the Arts in Nature with artists working in a variety of mediums participating as mentors in the Scout Island nature programs, in order to refine children’s perceptions and develop tools for expressing their emotions. Nature crafts have traditionally been a part of their programming. However, this project intends to go beyond crafts to encourage and mentor a more meaningful artistic expression, as well as ongoing relationships with artists/mentors.
• The Women’s Contact Society will receive $1,500 to stage the free Williams Lake Children’s Festival on May 27 in Boitanio Park. The event focuses on literacy, safety, arts and culture, nutrition, physical activity and showcases local child care providers, services and support for children 0-10 years.
The event features live performances by local groups, interactive and engaging children’s performers and entertainers, fire safety, RCMP and numerous booths and games for children. This year they would like to include interactive live theatre stage performances.