Moosomin Visual Arts Centre holding open house this Saturday
September 23, 2024, 10:08 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
This Saturday, Sept. 28, the Moosomin Visual Arts Centre is holding an open house from 10 am to 3 pm to officially invite the community in to see what the new arts centre is all about.
Since opening its doors in February, the Moosomin Visual Arts Centre has become a part of the community in the way organizers hoped it would be. Within a year, the MVAC went from an idea to a physical location in St. Alban’s Anglican Church at 701 Ellice Street—a gathering place for artists and people interested in learning more about the arts in the Moosomin region.
The open house on Saturday will allow the general public to come check out the arts centre, learn more about it, and get involved with the arts centre.
“It’s really our grand opening event, so we’re wanting to show off everything that we have available for people to use, all the equipment and how it works,” said Krista Crellin, Chair of the MVAC board. “We’re going to have some artists doing demonstrations all day, and then we’ll have some mini-classes throughout the day as well.”
The open house is being funded with the help of a $1,915 grant from Sask Arts.
Since the group opened their doors at 701 Ellice Street earlier this year, response from the public has been encouraging in terms of attendance and donations.
“We have a lot of equipment that we wanted already purchased,” Crellin said. “We’re still needing a few more things, but it’s come together real quick for us.”
Support from the community has been overwhelming with private individual and business donations, plus help from the Town of Moosomin.
“The Town is supporting us hugely with their contribution of $50,000 a year for three years,” Crellin explained. “That has made a really big difference. And then we’ve had some grants come through that have helped us, especially with our kids programming.”
So what kind of classes does the MVAC offer?
“We’re doing everything,” says Crellin.
“We’ve had drawing classes, painting classes, we’re doing craft classes, we’ve just had a fall wreath class. We have pottery started. Pottery on the wheel classes—that sold out right away. We have a stained glass studio, and those classes have been going really well too. There has been a little bit of everything.”
Crellin says if there’s something people want that the MVAC doesn’t currently offer, they’ll seek out the people to offer the classes.
“Some of the suggestions we’ve gotten from the community have really prompted us to go and find those instructors for those classes,” Crellin explained. “We just did a canning class; that was a suggestion from somebody, and it went really well!”
Potential teachers are always welcome as well, which allows for MVAC to offer more diverse classes.
“Always, even if it’s something off the wall, we love to hear from people who have these skills who want to share them,” Crellin said.
Some future plans include more pottery classes—which have already proven very popular—digital art classes, and an introduction to acrylic painting (a four-week workshop coming in November).
“We’re really hoping to be able to use all of the equipment we have and have classes on all those different mediums,” Crellin said.
Crellin says MVAC is still taking donations for supplies that would allow them to host larger class sizes.
“We still would like some more things to round out our pottery studio,” Crellin noted. “We only have three wheels there right now, and it would be great to have some more—just so that our classes can be bigger and we can fit more people in there. And our kitchen, we can use some more kitchen equipment for sure, sewing machines, we’re also looking at getting some more of those, because we only have a few. We’re hoping to fundraise or find grants for those.”
Busy winter ahead
The group is expecting more traffic as the colder months set in.
“For me, the winter is definitely easier to get in those extra little crafts and stuff like that, so we should be busier through the winter,” Crellin said.
Another big event the MVAC has planned is their Christmas Market on Nov. 2, which Crellin says already has 23 vendors signed up. The event will take place at the Conexus Convention Centre.
While things are rolling along at the arts centre, Crellin says there’s still lots of work to be done, and the group is still actively fundraising.
“We need some more sponsorship,” she replied. “We only have a few businesses sponsoring us right now. We have sent out letters to most of businesses in town, if not all. So sponsorship would be great to have so that we have that support every year.”
Another idea is a membership model that Crellin explained would also mean a stable financial source.
“We are hoping to roll that out at our grand opening—having memberships. So there will be a club fee that people pay, and then they join the MVAC Club, and that will get them access to all of the equipment that we have available during open house hours,” she said. “They can come and use the pottery wheel, or they can use the sewing machines, or they can use the paint brushes—anything really.”
Currently, the MVAC has one part-time employee, and having a club fee system might allow an increase to those hours, which in turn eases duties volunteers have been shouldering.
When asked what she’d like to see by the end of 2024, Crellin said, “I hope that we have the MVAC club up and running, and a lot of people signed up and using the space in the open studio time to create on their own, that would be amazing. And it would be really nice to see the pottery studio full with all the equipment that we need. That’s what I’d like to see by the end of the year.”
