The Clinton Art Society is encouraging the community to join an online forum to share each other’s art.
President Nancy McMinn said like many groups this year, the society has found it impossible to meet up due to COVID-19 and the group has been largely dormant since March. However, she is hoping to get things going again online by using its Facebook page to bring back a sense of community and appreciation for art.
The Facebook group was started a few years ago by the society’s then-secretary, who has since left. “No one really joined it when it was first (started) because I didn’t know anything about it and most of the members are older or not on Facebook at all, so it just sat dormant,” McMinn said.
She’s since invited everyone she can think of to join the group so everyone can get together, share their art and laugh as they’d usually do, only online instead of in-person. McMinn observed that sharing art and laughing is basically what their meetings are about anyway.
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“Our art society welcomes everybody, anything that you do that keeps you semi-sane in the winter qualifies, anything you make, produce or put together (is welcome),” McMinn said, adding the society also supports musicians and theatre productions of all kinds.
As the group was unable to meet this spring for its AGM due to COVID, the group is technically non-functional at the moment, though at last count McMinn said they had around a dozen members. Interest online hasn’t been too bad so far, but McMinn said they’re always looking for more members.
“I’m hoping that if people get to know what a fun group we are, maybe they’ll actually show up at a meeting, pay their $10 and join the society,” McMinn said.
McMinn and her husband have farmed in Clinton, riding and training horses mostly, since 2008. They came up here to get away from the rains and people of the Coast and have come to quite enjoy the South Cariboo’s weather and the lifestyle.
As a sculptor, McMinn said she’s always worked with clay all her life and sculpts mostly horses, although she enjoys branching out when she gets the chance. When she initially came to the South Cariboo she didn’t have time for art at all but after getting settled in, she began fooling around with clay in the winter.
“Then I heard there was the Clinton Art Society and so I went to my first meeting and met the people that were involved. In a few years time, they needed a president and I knew nothing about running any sort of a club but together with a friend we decided I would run for president, she would run for secretary and operate the society to our best ability,” McMinn said with a laugh. “Since no one else was running I got elected and every time an AGM comes around I asked everybody else if they’d like to run because I’d vote for them, and nobody else has volunteered.”
