Nanaimo sculptor Joel Prevost is once again inviting the public to join him in his backyard to appreciate art and music.
On July 10 and 11 Prevost presents his second annual outdoor garden sculpture show at Vancouver Island Sculpting Studio. Starting July 24 he’s also reviving his weekly pop-up patio shows featuring a variety of guest artists and musicians.
He said the pieces in his sculpture show will number “in the hundreds.”
“In the last year I was unable to teach [so] I created like crazy,” Prevost said, adding he feels fortunate to have an outlet.
Among the works on display will be a collection of dog busts in the classical realist style, a first for Prevost, normally a sculptor of the human body. That series started last November when Prevost was dog-sitting his son’s girlfriend’s French bulldog Russ, who had just undergone knee surgery.
“Because everything was of course shut down, no live models, I decided to use the dog as a model and those two weeks that I sculpted the dog I realized it was really fun,” Prevost said.”[So] then I started to get organized, I studied dog anatomy the same way I do with human beings and then it started one after the other.”
From there, Prevost put a call out on social media for people to send him photos of their dogs for him to turn into sculptures. Those pet owners will get to see their canines in clay form when they attend the exhibition.
“Every dog I sculpted this winter, this spring were from people on social media who sent me a photo of their dog,” Prevost said. “And some of those people, I don’t know them. We have some people that I don’t know that now I’m going to invite for the opening.”
Prevost said he’s looking forward to finally being able to host visitors for the first time since last summer. He said “you get to a point where you’re always by yourself praying I’m not turning crazy.”
“I had meetings for the last couple weeks and it’s fascinating because you can see that people need to talk,” he said. “And a few of the people I met here, they were saying, ‘You’re the first person I’ve seen outside of my bubble since last October.’ That’s a long time.”
WHAT’S ON … Outdoor garden sculpture show at Vancouver Island Sculpting Studio, 294 Harewood Rd. takes place July 10 and 11 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For information about upcoming pop-up patio shows, click here.
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