Submitted by Nelson and District Arts Council
The Nelson and District Arts Council has proudly hosted events that have become instrumental in supporting local artists for over five creative decades.
Its flagship event, ArtWalk 2020, is scheduled for June 26 to Sept. 4, in the early stages of preparation and the Arts Council’s priority is to keep our community of arts-lovers and artists healthy and safe.
The Arts Council is working hard to be proactive during the COVID-19 health care crisis and will develop a digital gallery platform for visual artists collaborating with the local business community to benefit both.
This platform will also include artisans this year to provide support since they won’t be participating in farmers’ markets due to current regulations.
The application fees for both artists and venues have been waived for everyone in an effort to alleviate financial pressures related to the current COVID-19 economy.
Two openings on June 26 and July 31 will be live stream presentations of local performance artists, who will be safely perform from their homes, and will be featured on ArtWalk’s website and social media channels.
This will allow for local performance artists to continue to be paid for their work in a climate where almost all summer performance opportunities have been cancelled.
The Arts Council will connect with the local business community who will support artists by “hosting” them on their social media pages.
“We will create artist feature posts for a business to share with their networks in lieu of physically being able to hang artwork in their establishments,” the Arts Council said in a prepared statement.
“These links will connect to our ArtWalk gallery where patrons can directly connect with the artists to make their purchases.”
