Kimberly McLennan is assuming two high profile roles in the lakecity’s arts community.
She has been elected as president of both the Williams Lake Community Arts Council and the Station House Gallery Society.
McLennan came to the Cariboo three years ago from a little village in the Lower Mainland called Lake Errock between Mission and Harrison Hot Springs.
She is originally from Pennsylvania in the U.S. and studied commercial art and fine arts in Ohio.
While on holiday in Florida, she met a Canadian. The couple married and moved to the Vancouver area where they raised two (now grown) daughters.
McLennan took the Citation training through Kwantlan University and, for many years, worked in employment services around the Lower Mainland providing assistance to people with physical disabilities and mental health issues.
In recent years she made several visits to the Williams Lake area with a friend. Then three years ago she moved to Timothy Lake and resumed work in employment services in Williams Lake. For the first year she commuted to Williams Lake, but finding the commute difficult moved here permanently two years ago.
“I feel I was supposed to be here,” says McLennan, who quit her job last year to pursue her dream of helping people through art.
She is in the process of setting up an artist’s studio in Delainey’s Centre Mall on Oliver Street where she will offer creativity workshops for artists and non-artists alike.
“I’m not a very disciplined person which is why I like to do expressive art workshops,” McLennan says.
As an artist she experiments in all sorts of mediums — stained glass, collage, three dimensional sculpture, acrylic painting and some water-colour painting.
“I just play basically,” McLennan says.
She is also a member of the Studio Theatre Society.
People who saw On Golden Pond last year will know her work from her wonderful, set painting that gave viewers the feeling they were actually looking out the windows of a cabin onto a beautiful lake scene.
She is on the board of the Boys and Girls Club and a member of the Central Interior Regional Arts Council.
On the Williams Lake Arts Council she serves with Dot Unrau, vice-president and treasurer; Sharon Hoffman, secretary; and past president Susan O’Sullivan. The directors include a representative from each of the member groups, which include organizations such as the spinners and weavers, painters and potters.
McLennan says there hasn’t been an arts council meeting since she was elected in November and she is looking forward to calling one some time in February.
She says the arts council will need to redefine its role in the community arts scene given creation of the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society a couple of years ago.
“I don’t know what our role will be in the future but I would hope we can contribute to the vitality of arts and culture in our community,” McLennan says.
She says the primary benefit of an arts council membership is the provision of group insurance, and the sharing of charitable status, which allows groups to apply for arts grants. For many years the arts council and its member groups have been leaders in initiating arts and culture events in the community and in hosting various types of workshops with professionals for all types of artists — theatre, painting, music, fabric, etc.
As president of the Station House Society board McLennan serves with treasurer Pat Teti, vice-president Kathryn Steen, past president Bev Pemberton, and directors Mary Forbes, Anne Oliver, Patricia Weber, Lori Macala, and Sheila Wyse.