West of Main Art Walk spans collage, woodblock prints, oils, and more, May 30 and 31
Spreading as far west as Tolmie Street, Artists in Our Midst’s annual open-studio event features 79 talents in all
(Left to right) Michael Shumiatcher’s oil-on-linen Georgia Street Nocturne; Charleen Stroud’s Cosmos and tulip embroidered vessels; and Lisa Farrell’s Odd Thoughts, in acrylic, collage, wax crayon, pencil, and gel pen.
West of Main Art Walk takes place at various venues on May 30 and 31
THE IMPORTANT THING to remember with Artists in Our Midst’s West of Main Art Walk is that the group really means “west”—as in, from Main Street all the way over to Tolmie Street on the interactive map here.
That spreads things out to a huge area, and a huge wealth of visual artists—79 opening their multi-unit and home studios this weekend. There’s also a massive breadth of media: oils and acrylics on canvas, form-pushing ceramics, jewellery, and more.
Among the high-calibre standouts, check out Lisa Farrell’s multilayered mix of acrylic, collage, wax crayon, pencil, and gel pen. Look for abstract, gestural takes on the nearby ocean, mountains, and city. As the artist puts it in her statement, her technique resembles “call and response”: “Creating and destroying, adding materials and scraping them away, pushing the differences between elements, and using my own life experiences to enhance the piece and bring a sense of history in the layers.”
Over at a group of studios on West 16th Avenue, Charleen Stroud is melding her love of clay with her love of embroidery. Limiting herself to to shiny and matte-black or white glazes, the artist adds colour, weaving bold pink, purple, or turquoise threads through holes along the rims of her vessels. Look for Stroud’s equally delicate ceramic jewellery as well.
Meanwhile, over at a studio on East 27th (yes, just a teeny bit west of Main), Michael Shumiatcher’s oil paintings draw influences from the work of Milton Avery and Edward Hopper. Think cityscapes, landscapes, figures, and still-lifes—busy streets, storefronts, foggy skies, and lights glowing in the dark.
And showing how novel the artists’ use of material and process-blending can be, Joanne Brown, over on West 5th, creates vivid imagery on fabric or paper, often integrating woodblock and monotype prints, and drawing inspiration from nature, music, and story.
There’s much, much more. And don’t forget to swing by the group’s Art for $50 event: many of the artists participating in West of Main will donate works on six-by-six-inch wood panels, with all proceeds supporting art programs at Lord Byng High School, Outsiders and Others Gallery, and the Downtown Community Health Centre Arts Collective. 
Joanne Brown’s print collage Let’s Face the Music and Dance.
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