These certificate programs are aimed at developing students’ technical skills and art knowledge. Students progress from Level 1 to Level 3. Students will work in a small group setting with a professional artist to learn drawing fundamentals and techniques using a variety of media and subject matter. Each Level is a 5 week program and all supplies are included. Students will receive a certificate at the end of each 5 week session. 

Level 1:  September 29 – October 27
Level 2:  November 3 – December 1
Level 3:  January 5 – February 2, 2011

Location: St. Gerard Catholic School, 9724-88 Avenue, Grande Prairie

Grande Prairie is one of five featured celebration sites in Alberta and the Prairie Art Gallery will partner with other community organizations, including the Centre for Creative Arts, to present exciting activities throughout the Arts Days weekend.

What an Amazing Weekend!
To learn more about the amazing events happening in Grande Prairie visit www.abartsdaysgp.ca.  You will find information about art exhibitions and openings, art walks, film screenings, music concerts, and more.

Events All Over Alberta!
Visit AlbertaArtsDays.ca to learn more about Alberta Arts Days and view a calender of events that are scheduled all over the province.

Visit the Prairie Art Gallery during the event to learn more about the restoration project.  Visitors can also view art exhibitions including The Wild Side of Art and AutoPark.

The fall issue of Community Connections is available at most City facilities on August 25 and in that day’s Daily Herald Tribune.   The Connections Event on August 28th at the Montrose Cultural Centre will feature over 50 exhibits showcasing programs and services offered by the City of Grande Prairie and many Grande Prairie and area community groups.  Learn more about the sports, recreation, community support, arts and culture, and health and wellness groups.  More details can be found in the Community Connections or by calling 780-830-7070.

Learn more at the City of Grande Prairie’s website.

View a 3:31 minute video by the Edmonton Journal to hear the artist speak about the exhibition of AutoPark during the 2010 The Works Art & Design Festival in Edmonton, Alberta.  Watch the video.  Learn more about The Works Art & Design Festival.

A temporary installation of AutoPark will be on view in Grande Prairie at the Street Performers Festival July 23 – 25, 2010 and will continue through the summer and fall at the the Prairie Art Gallery/Montrose Cultural Centre location.

AutoPark located at the Prairie Art Gallery, Montrose Cultural Centre

Visit The Prairie Art Gallery during the 2010 Street Performers Festival! Gallery staff and volunteers will be downtown with chalk drawing that is open to visitors of all ages. 

View four different art exhibitions:

• AutoPark by Laura St.Pierre is an outdoor performance installation located downtown on 100 Avenue
• Le Jardin du sommeil by Canadian artist Spring Hurlbut at The Prairie Art Gallery
• The Wild Side of Art on view at The Prairie Art Gallery
• Children’s Art Exhibition featuring the art work created by the students of this year’s summer art camps on Saturday, July 24 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm

Learn more about the Grande Prairie Street Performers Festival on their official website, www.gpstreetfest.com.  Be sure to read their page with tips on how to make the best of your weekend.

Canadians have an identity, one to be proud of.  HERS is a portrait exhibition and the paintings are all women and all artists.  In their honour, 32 large-scale portraits of contemporary, innovative Canadian women in the arts.  The artists’ goal is to depict each of these women expressing their passion in their respective art forms.

The moving sight of about 100 cribs and cradles lined up in orderly fashion in The Prairie Art Gallery will summon up memories of hospitals, orphanages, dormitories, schoolrooms, cemeteries—images that telescope the cycle of life: birth, life and death.

Le Jardin du sommeil (1998) is a remarkable installation by Canadian artist Spring Hurlbut.  It was acquired by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal in 2009, and is currently travelling to other galleries.  The work evokes both childhood and the loss of childhood.  It is made up of 140 antique, found, metal cribs and cradles, simply and soberly arranged in rows.  The discreet presence of a few ceramic funeral wreaths at the beginning of the journey through this “garden of sleep” introduces the idea of a memorial, a notion heightened by the walkways that wrap around it.

Spring Hurlbut was born in 1952 in Toronto, where she lives and works.  Since the late seventies, she has developed a painstaking, intimate art that employs strategies from architecture and museology to guide us through the labyrinth of the human psyche.  Variously reappropriating artifacts, colour illustrations and taxidermy specimens, the artist picks out objects that represent archetypes of the life cycle.  For Le Jardin du sommeil, Hurlbut, a passionate collector, sought out and found 140 different examples of metal cribs and cradles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  The geometric layout of the installation and the lining up of the motifs recall the structure of a garden, and the accumulation of objects, that of a cabinet of curiosities.  At once similar and unique, the beds symbolically express the individual yet universal nature of the human destiny.

This exhibition is part of the MOMENTUM series, a touring project from the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.  The MOMENTUM series has been made possible with the financial support of the Department of the Canadian Heritage through its Museums Assistance Program. 

Cette exposition s’inscrit dans le cadre de la série MOMENTUM, un projet de circulation de the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.  La série MOMENTUM a été rendue possible grâce à l’appui financier du ministère du Patrimoine canadien par le biais du Programme d’aide aux musées.

Interpretive Guide to the Exhibition

Learn more about Le Jardin du sommeil and watch the interview with Spring Hurlbut.

This portrait exhibition earnestly captures the spirit and unique perspective of Peace Country elders whom the artist has had the pleasure of interviewing and photographing. To honour the many character’s individual life stories, every oil painting reveals a senior’s favourite colour, animal, vegetable, and inspirational quote, as well as how many children he or she has. It was once said, “The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.” Enfield’s intent is to help pass this wisdom along.

Saturday, April 10, 2010
7:00 pm
9839 – 103 Avenue, Grande Prairie, AB
Tickets are $100 each. 

If you have further questions about the 30th Annual Art Auction, please call Melanie at The Prairie Art Gallery at (780) 357-7485.

The annual Art Auction is a special event that provides a diverse showcase of local, regional and national artistic talent.  This year we are introducing a Commemorative Catalogue that will focus attention on each donating artist’s work and each guest will receive a copy.

Sponsorship
With the support of the community and patrons like you, we are able to host such an important event.  We have revitalized our Sponsorship Program in hopes that it provides a better range of sponsorship opportunities.  Also, we have added a Pearl Level sponsorship opportunity.  This new opportunity is available for two supporters who are interested in becoming the 30th Anniversary Commemorative Art Catalogue Sponsors.

This year the Art Auction is excited to announce that Investors Group Financial Services will continue their support of the Gallery at the 30th Anniversary Art Auction as the Title Sponsor. We would like to thank Investors Group for their ongoing and generous support.

If you would like information on any of our sponsorship opportunities, please contact Rob Swanston directly at (780) 357 – 7486 and he would be happy to provide you with more details.

Download Sponsorship Information:  Sponsorship Package, Pearl Sponsorship Package

All funds raised at the Art Auction directly support The Prairie Art Gallery.

Title Sponsor