For years, the Campbell River Arts Council has been accepting donations of original art from the community that it could share with the public.
Until now, however, they have had very little chance to do so.
“People would donate it to us intending for it to go up in the hospital, generally,” says Ken Blackburn, executive director of the arts council. “But not much of it has been able to go up in there for various reasons, so we’ve just kind of been holding onto it until we could find somewhere for it to go.
There are issues like infection control and content matter that make it so that a lot of it just won’t work in the hospital itself.
“Things like abstractions or work that is really bold and splashy, for example, aren’t considered to be great for therapeutic environment,” Blackburn continues. “But we have a lot that will work great for places like the hospice or other community-based organizations, so we’re more than happy to move it forward and have it be up in a place where it will do some good.”
And the Campbell River Hospice Society is happy to have had first crack at the collection.
They’ve recently filled the walls of their newly-opened facility on Evergreen Road with around 20 pieces from the council’s collection.
“We moved in here at the end of March, and we had a lot of empty walls,” says longtime member of the hospice society board of directors and current advisor Helen Garson. “Around that time, I read in the paper that Ken was looking for local artists to give them art for the new hospital, and I thought, ‘maybe they’ll have some left over.’
“It turned out they had a lot of art stored already, so Leslie (Palmer, current board vice president) and I went down to the cottage and picked some out.”
Blackburn, who then came and hung the work at the new facility, says the works are on “permanent loan,” which basically means while it all still technically belongs to the arts council, the hospice society can keep it for as long as it wants.
“The spirit of the collection is that it has come from the community to be used as we see fit, but primarily for art-in-health type initiatives, so this is the perfect fit kind of situation,” Blackburn says.
But they certainly still have more art to share and are looking for other community-based organizations to get in touch if they are in need of some.
“We’re currently doing a full inventory on our collection, but I would say we have about 50 works, and I would hope that any organization who wants to do as hospice has done would get in touch,” Blackburn says. “We’d be more than happy to have them come down and we’ll bring the art out for them and they can see if any of it fits their needs.”
As for hospice, they are hoping to be having a community open house this winter where they will show off their new facility. Though an official date has not been set, Garson says people should watch for an announcement soon.
“We’ll be happy to have the community in to show them what’s been accomplished here, because we’re very proud of all the work that’s been done,” Garson says.
For more on the hospice society and to learn about their various community offerings head to crhospice.org and for more on the arts council and their various initiatives head to crarts.ca