Life is not moving at a crawl for Powell River artist Anna May Bennett right now.
“I’m on deadline,” said Bennett.
Bennett was just finishing painting four panels of a major commission for BC Children’s Hospital, which she has to deliver to Vancouver the day before joining 21 other Powell River artists to set up for the seventh annual Sunshine Coast Art Crawl.
However, those artists will not be in Powell River for the three-day festival that features 300 artists at 130 venues from Earls Cove to Langdale from Friday, October 21, through Sunday, October 23.
“When Sunshine Coast Art Crawl included Powell River and Lund, we realized not the same number of shoppers were coming to see us as were on the lower coast,” said Bennett.
Last year, instead of waiting for people to come here, she said, the group had the idea of going to where the most people were crawling: the lower coast, specifically Roberts Creek.
“Just in that four days last year most of us already knew that we wanted to do it again,” she said. “We had over 1,000 people through the door at the Roberts Creek Community Hall and a lot of really positive feedback.”
At times, more than 100 people lined up waiting to get in and see the art, she said.
The group calls itself Malaspina Artists Powell River Art Ambassadors. Last year 18 artists made the trip. This year, 21 will attend. Bennett said making connections is what the group does.
“I enjoy meeting the people who enjoy my work, talking to them about it and seeing people’s reaction,” she said. “It’s something I look forward to.”
After a successful solo show last year, Bennett, a landscape painter, focused most of her energies on the Filberg Festival in Comox, the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl and the children’s hospital commission.
According to Linda Williams, program director of the art crawl, which is presented by the Coast Cultural Alliance, the feeling of south coasters toward Powell River’s artists is mutual.
“It has really worked out well and the exciting part is all of the people down here, the artists and community, get to see Powell River’s work that they would never have seen otherwise,” said Williams. “In talking to some of the artists from Powell River last year, they were just in awe at how many people thanked them for coming and going through all the work of bringing the artists down here. It was just one of those warm and fuzzy things, with everybody being happy that it happened.”
Powell River painter Ursula Medley said the crawl is a lot of fun for the artists, a “Roberts Creek or bust” road trip.
“Most of us stay at an old farm house in Roberts Creek,” said Medley. “It has a huge kitchen where we all get together after the day. It’s in the forest with a creek running through it. It’s a nice way to get together with the artists and get to know each other a little bit.”
For more information, go to sunshinecoastartcrawl.ca.
