A decade ago, a few members of the Gibsons Art Society (GAS) had a vision: Gibsons as a centre for the arts, with its own arts school as a pivot. Eventually, Peggy Small, Lenore Conacher, Claire Caplan and Vivian Chamberlin drew a cadre of talented and dedicated administrators and artists to their umbrella and launched the Gibsons School of the Arts - a summer school that has grown into a vital element of the Coast’s arts economy.
From its inception, the school’s emphasis on quality and service has been key to its success.
Starting with four week-long watercolour workshops, the School of the Arts strove, as Peggy Small says, “to give the best service we possibly could.” The School’s president, Donnie McAra, applauds the school’s original decision to bring in outstanding teachers from all over North America to enrich Coast students’ opportunities and experience. Not only did these top-calibre instructors provide excellent instruction for Coast artists, they drew – and continue to draw – students from off-Coast as well. Combining an arts-intensive week of workshops with a week of the laid-back Gibsons lifestyle proved an addictive combination for vacationers.
This year, for the first time, off-Coast students will outnumber the residents in most classes.
Also for the first time this year, a Gibsons artist will join the teaching staff. Greta Guzek’s acrylics – washing warm South African tones of umber and rust over Coastal scenes – are hanging in private and corporate collections on several continents. Her inaugural class with the Gibsons School of the Arts quickly filled, with a waiting list long enough to fill a second session – if only time were available.
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“Ideally,” says Donnie, “we’d love to run classes all year round – but as it is, we work all year round just on the summer school.” Amazingly, the school is run entirely by volunteers committed to providing quality arts education. Not all the volunteers are artists; Donnie’s involvement grew from her late husband’s association with the group, and her administrative skills have been invaluable. “Having lived with an artist for over 43 years,” she says, “I know how to stay grounded.”
Peggy notes that the group has “kept our head above water” financially from the very beginning. The group proudly notes their fiscal success does not rely on grants – their sole public support is a rent reduction from the Town of Gibsons, from whom they lease their current premises. However, “getting a permanent venue has always been our objective,” Peggy notes.
The saga of a search for a home extends back a decade. As the school found its feet – and its audience among Coastal and visiting art students – classroom space at Elphinstone School and the Alternate School building was withdrawn. Happily, Sunshine Coast Community Services agreed to sub-let the bright and airy upper floor of the old library building (at the corner of Winn and South Fletcher) to the school for the summer months. “We’ve been there ever since, very gratefully,” says Peggy.
Wouldn’t it be easier to have a permanent site for storage of the equipment acquired over the years, and an option to offer classes other than in the summer months? “Our dream is to have an art centre at some point, at some time – as it has been right along,” says Donnie. Unlike the Arts Centre in Sechelt, which pivots around its gallery and stresses the visual arts, “our school would be just a very small part of (the arts centre.) It would include all the disciplines: music, written arts, dance – it would be much more encompassing.”
The vision that began the School of the Arts a decade ago may well spin off a Centre for the Arts a decade hence. It’s a dream worth planning for.
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