Members of the Cariboo Artists’ Guild (CAG) recently travelled way back into their respective pasts for inspiration – all the way back to childhood.
A month-long group show currently on display at Showcase Gallery in 100 Mile House features paintings created with the theme “childhood memories” in mind.
CAG member Carolyne Herperger was one of the artists hanging works the morning of March 4 at the gallery, located on the main floor of the South Cariboo Business Centre at 475 Birch Ave. in 100 Mile House.
Herperger jokes about the small number of paintings they received from members to display.
“Apparently some people don’t have any [childhood memories] because we usually have a lot more [paintings].”
There are nine currently on the walls, but it was almost only eight.
Gisela Gruening, a 100 Mile House resident, is a longtime CAG member. Her piece, titled Five Pennies, was done hastily in coloured pencil in one day last week because she forgot about the upcoming show.
The drawing is of her as a little girl in a blue dress, red pigtail ribbons in her hair, with five pennies laid out on the counter for a clerk at an old general store.
What did she buy with those coins?
“Candies,” Gruening says. “I had five pennies.”
Other paintings, done by new and old CAG members, feature a variety of scenes.
They include memories about family members, a dog, a summer at the beach, having fun in the snow and imagining a tree house.
CAG is a group of aspiring and accomplished artists, which promotes the development of the local art scene.
The group show is the first of two planned this year.
Typically, it’s the work of individual artists on display at Showcase Gallery, one month at a time.
Shirley Williams from Lac la Hache is slated as the featured artist for April.
“It’s to show our art,” Herperger says of the monthly displays. “To educate the public and to encourage other artists to join us.”
