Roaming exhibit helps flood victims
Published on: August 14, 2013 | Last Updated: August 14, 2013 12:24 PM EDT
It has been well documented through history that creativity is borne from adversity and tragedy. And like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Alberta Flood Rose Project was created from the receding waters of the southern Alberta floods this past June.
The Alberta Flood Rose Project launched its roving exhibition last week in Cochrane at Just ImaJan Art Gallery, Aug. 7. The exhibition contains 567, 4X4 inch tiles depicting Alberta's provincial flower, the Wild Rose. There are seven frames, each frame containing 81 tiles. 450 artists submitted their work to the Project including local painters from the Foothills Art Club and other local artists Janet Armstrong and Carmen Miller.
"Each artist could submit as many pieces as they wanted to," Janet Armstrong, artist and owner of Just ImaJan Art Studio, stated. "The only stipulation was that it had to be on a 4X4 inch canvas and it had to be an original piece depicting a wild rose and you couldn't submit two pieces from the same medium, like two oil pieces. I submitted three and Carmen (Miller) submitted four."
The Alberta Flood Rose Project was created by Calgary artist Terri Heinrichs who attended the exhibition's initial launch at Just ImaJan.
"About a week after the floods I thought that we could do a collective from a whole bunch of different artists," commented Heinrichs. "I phoned a few artists' friends and it took off from there. The exhibition will be displayed at numerous venues throughout Calgary and the area. All the pieces will be auctioned off at the Hotel d'Arts in Calgary on August 28 and the money will go to the flood victims through the Canadian Red Cross."
"This is going to be huge," Armstrong predicted. "Whoever buys these will own a piece of Alberta history. Some of these lost their paintings to the flood. Some artists lost their studios and all their art supplies."
Both artists, Armstrong and Miller, went to each frame excitedly pointing out some of the more unique wild rose depictions stored behind the glass windows. Images of roses made from acrylic, metal, needle point, oil, stain glass and wood, and even mud from a flooded garden, just to name a few of the mediums used.
"It is amazing how one idea can be interpreted differently by so many people," Miller observed.
One of Miller's paintings, a mosaic, took the artist three days to make.
"It took me three days to make it because I had to break and cut the pieces of the mosaic and then grout, sand and then seal the edges."
Janet Armstrong feels close to the project due in part because of her own flooding issues and partially because she is extremely passionate about art, whether it is her own work or fellow artists. One of Armstrong's paintings in the Project is an acrylic painted rose with droplets of water protruding from the canvas, or what appears to be droplets of water.
"I was dealing with my own flood at home and wanted to do something really different," Armstrong admitted. "The droplets of water, or tears, are actually the little resins you put on the back of your pictures that rest on your wall."
Unfortunately the exhibition could only be viewed in Cochrane at Just ImaJan Art Gallery for three days last week, August 7 to August 9, before it was moved to a gallery in Calgary. This beautiful exhibition will be roving in galleries throughout Calgary and the area for the next couple of weeks before the auction. Anyone wishing more information or would like to bid online please check out www.thealbertafloodroseproject.com