A Rossland group says it’s time for the community to have a home for the arts.
Sarah Taekema of the Rossland Arts Centre group made an introductory pitch about the concept to Rossland City Council on Tuesday.
“Our mission is to provide a space to make art and be educated in the visual arts on a permanent basis for all ages,” Taekema said in prepared statements delivered to council Tuesday. “These initial plans come after months of research and surveying the local arts community in regards to their wishes and needs from an arts centre and access to programming.”
Taekema, Lana Jamieson, Shauna Davis and Sonja Janischewski of the new not-for-profit society say they’d like to see the Drill Hall, on 1st and Monte Cristo, converted to a flexible work and display space for artists.
The building is in move-in condition, she says, and large enough to provide both permanent exhibition space and workshop space for artists and performers.
“We strongly believe that if such a communal space existed locally, it would not only benefit the artistic community here in Rossland, but the city as a whole,” she said.
An Arts Centre would provide space for teaching, practicing, displaying and performing art, the group told council. Regular drop-in hours would be established to make the facility as much a community centre as an art space.
“With all local pottery societies at capacity and not able to expand within their current spaces, and with so few collaborative arts spaces in general, having a large permanent venue would allow the arts community in Rossland to reach its full, and incredible potential,” said Taekema.
Taekema told the Rossland News the project idea came about when she started talking with other artists who, like her, have moved to Rossland from other locations with an arts centre.
“We were kind of bemoaning the lack of available space,” she says. “And we all… were part of co-ops and artist-run centres and artist communities in the cities we all lived in previously, and we thought, you know, Rossland could really benefit from a space like this.
“And the more we dug into it the more we realized there are thriving arts communities in rural towns as well, why not start one here?”
It also has the benefit of providing a useful new function to a community heritage site, she added.
“These initial plans come after months of research and surveying the local arts community in regards to their wishes and needs from an arts centre and access to programming,” she said in her presentation. “As a group we firmly believe quality art space and programming will benefit our community immensely in so many ways!”
The project is still very much in the preliminary stages, says Taekema, and at least two to three years before becoming a reality.
The group hasn’t established the cost of the project or how the centre might operate. She says the group has had initial discussions with the Columbia Basin Trust about the kind of support that is available, and have begun research on how to make such a centre be economically sustainable.
The group would also have to talk to the local school district to see if it can gain access to the building, which had been used as a local school for a number of years.
Tuesday’s presentation to council was made to get discussion started in the community about the idea, she said.
“We want to make sure it is a really well managed, well set-up and sustainable project,” she says. “We want to use this facility for the rest of our lives.”
