The quarantine made creative minds work and reorganize quickly and brought up many new opportunities. The Oxbow Arts and Cultural Committee first organized a successful online music concert and has now launched their first Community Art Gallery in a digital format.
Comprised of artists representing a variety of mediums from the Oxbow area, the gallery went live Sunday evening and will be available for a week. The digital album was added to the committee’s social networks that are open for public viewing to be enjoyed from home.
Megan Andersen, who took on inviting the artists to participate and organized the gallery, talked to the Mercury about the project.
“I’ve been in contact with several artists to see if they were willing to submit some works they already had. They emailed back to myself and I (uploaded) it through Facebook and Instagram. It’s one album to look at,” said Andersen.
The gallery is comprised of images of various art including photography, unique woodwork, collage, oil and watercolour paintings, and a few sketches.
Andersen, Kim Friesen, Jeremy Maffenbeier, Leonard and Evan Moncrief, Lynn Wood and Doug Sully partook in the Community Art Gallery project. Some of the artists are currently living in Oxbow, Alameda and Glen Ewen, while others were born there but are now reside in Estevan or somewhere else.
“We have people who live in the States, in B.C. that have submitted their work. One of our photographers has entered photos of her own area, so we got some really nice rural Saskatchewan work,” said Andersen.
Forty art pieces were entered for the project. Each picture has a description, including the artist’s name, the medium and explanation of what it is.
It was the first digital Community Art Gallery, and Andersen said that if it goes well, they’d like to have a second one in the future or maybe even turn it into a monthly event for as long as life is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the future digital galleries may be organized a bit differently.
“This one we did by invitation, otherwise next ones we will probably open up to anyone else who might be interested,” said Andersen.
She hopes that people will post feedback on the committee's social networks, which along with the number of engagements, will help evaluate the project and navigate them in the future. The page and the album are public, so people can like and comment if they choose so.
To view the album, people can follow or like the Oxbow Arts and Cultural Committee on Facebook or Instagram, or just search them to check out the latest album. Andersen said the group is open to everybody, and even if people don’t have a social network account they can still access the gallery.
The album will be available to view from April 26 to May 3, and then it will be archived on their Facebook page.
