MAKING A MARK: Exhibiting art locally - in Ontario and Leicestershire

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Exhibiting art locally - in Ontario and Leicestershire

Barton Street Warehouse 3
copyright Gordon Leverton

Two of my cyber chums, Gord Leverton and Vivien Blackburn are both heavily involved with 'art shows' in their respective local areas at the moment. Both also use pastels in their artwork. In my opinion, they both do excellent work and I'm highlighting below the various opportunities to see their work in person in the next couple of months

Getting your work shown seems to me to be directly related to the effort made by an artist to finding opportunities to show their work. Lots of opportunities exist at a local level for all artists - and you can find them and make them work for you if you put some effort into making it happen. I think both these artists are an excellent example of the type of person who gets actively involved with local groups and creating/making opportunities to show their work in both local exhibitions and galleries. This in turn helps to generate exhibitions of their work further afield.

This weekend Gord Leverton is participating in a really special project at the old boilerhouse building - The Powerhouse - at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton Ontario, (Canada). Some of the region's most talented artists are holding a group exhibition of industrial-inspired artworks in conjunction with the annual Doors Open Hamilton 2007 which is the Hamilton Ontario contribution to the Doors Open Ontario heritage iniative.

The major item of news is that Gord has just been accepted into the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, which takes place July 6, 7, 8, 2007 at Nathan Phillips Square. It's the largest outdoor art exhibition in Canada, with over 500 vendors in fourteen disciplines. Well done Gord - that's really impressive!

Prior to that, you can see Gord's work at various upcoming exhibitions in Ontario Canada during May and June. These are as follows:

Spring Studio Tour - May 12-13, 2007 - 114 Stanley Ave. (between Locke St. and Dundurn), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Art Carousel - group exhibition, May 13 - June 16, 2007 at Gallery 96, Stratford, ON - a rotating exhibition and sale of smaller works by the members of Gallery 96.
Recent works - solo exhibition, June 2007, Workers Art and Heritage Centre, 51 Stuart Street, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Gord is also very kindly organising and curating the second group exhibition by Fine Line Artists which is being held during June at the Jitterbug Cafe & Roasting Co. in Waterdown, Ontario. The theme of our second group exhibition is 'Portals'. I'll be posting more information about this exhibition by the end of the month.

You can get notices about Gord's exhibitions if you subscribe to his blog.

I think Vivien Blackburn has great talent - you can see some of her most recent work here and read about it on her blog.

Like Gord, she belongs to a number of local art societies and groups.

You can see some of her work in person at "Look West!" a group show by the Association of Leicestershire Artists between 14th and 26th May at the West End Gallery in Highcross Street in Leicester. (Location).

One of Vivien's favourite mediums is pastel and, at the end of the month she has work in the Annual Exhibition of the Leicestershire Pastel Society 27th May - June 1st (details/preview on their website).

I think it's great to see so much activity and work being exhibited and, as ever, I'm always struck by how very active local art societies and groups of artists can be outside capital cities.

How about you? Are you getting ready for exhibitions over the summer?

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