Last Saturday Oct. 13th Al and I and our friends Roy and Maureen drove over to North Vancouver for the opening day of the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art.

After many years of operating ‘Artists for Kids’ in a local school the school board now has a brand-new building and has designated the lowest two floors for a gallery.

The permanent collection of Canadian Art has been accumulated by an imaginative scheme which brought artists and their work to the municipality each year. Artists make a print which will be owned by the district and editions are sold to subsidize the programme. As part of the arrangement an original work of art is purchased by the organization to be part of the collection. Over the years many very well-known artists have participated in this arts education project. Most of the print editions are sold out but a new one is added each year and the permanent collection now has a splendid new home. This is a link to the website for the gallery.

http://gordonsmithgallery.ca

Artists who have participated include Bill Reid, Jack Shadbolt, Douglas Copeland and Gathie Falk and the gallery has been named after a very active and longtime supporter of the programme, Gordon Smith.

Go to my blog of Jan 29th 2011 for my account of visiting Artists4Kids and more information on the programme.

This year’s print offering is by Robert Davidson (his second time being involved) and at the opening he thanked founder Bill MacDonald for nurturing the Artists for Kids idea and making the programme what it is today. He stressed the importance of Art in a child’s education. In his new print ‘Darkness and Light’ the bright red and yellow are greater than the black darkness and symbolize our need for light in these dark times for the world.

Copies of the print were selling like hot cakes that afternoon. Sorry I didn’t take a photo of it.

The lowest floor of the gallery houses the permanent collection and entry is by donation. The mezzanine floor, from which I took photos of the opening show and first-day visitors, displays the print collection so one can easily see which are still available for purchase and which are sold out. Many will be very familiar to Canadians. The complex has rooms for hosting art-making programmes for children and other reception areas. In the entry foyer an Emily Carr student (sorry, I didn’t note her name) was selling badges made up of the print designs for $2 each. What a fun souvenir to take from this great place!

The building takes up a whole city block on 21st Avenue on Lonsdale so there is a large garden where many large trees have been preserved. I’m afraid several of my photos are of the great ‘yarn-bombing’ that has been allowed to happen there, one is of the Robert Davidson abstract outdoor sculpture “Meeting at the Middle” and one is of a wooden sculpture which is obviously intended for children to climb as they play near their local Art Gallery.

The school board employees must be very happy to work above this creative environment.