The current Art in the Hall exhibition at the Okotoks Municipal Centre is a sort of love letter from an artist to her community.
Erica Neumann, who is widely known for her wildlife oil paintings, said she decided to put more of an urban spin on her work for this exhibition.
“For my June show I thought I’d like to paint the old buildings around town, so I did,” said Neumann. “I did them en plein air, which means I go on location. I sit in front of a building and a couple of hours later there is a painting.” “
Neumann admitted there was scrambling in the weather challenged months leading up to the show’s June debut to get the works finished.
With her tongue planted firmly in her check she said the weather added an extra challenge.
“I painted them in the very, very short spring of 2011,” she joked
Capturing on canvas such privately owned Okotoks structures as the All Through the House store and Bistro Provence restaurant, created an unusual dilemma for the artist.
“I painted them for the show but in the same breath I didn’t want to have them up for sale,” Neumann said. “It just didn’t seem fair to paint people’s buildings and then sell it back to them. Then I read in the Western Wheel about the teenagers who were doing fundraising for Rowan House.”
The painter with a gallery and studio on Elma Street quickly decided the charity would also be a good thing for her to support.
The name of Neumann’s current Art in the Hall display is “The Painted Promise”. It has an overriding theme of home and community making it a nice fit with the Rowan House Emergency Shelter, which provides sanctuary and support services for women and children affected by violence.
The Rowan House charity is currently gathering funds to build a new, much larger, stand alone facility in High River to replace it’s current location in the basement of an adolescent group home in Black Diamond. To help in the effort, Neumann called on the local company, Spy Design, to create prints of all eight paintings in The Painted Promise collection.
The prints are being sold at the Okotoks Art Gallery and Neumann said all of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
“Fifty per cent goes to Rowan House and the other 50 per cent is going to help rebuild Slave Lake,” she said.
Assisting the Town of Slave Lake to rebound after it was devastated by fire again ties into the art exhibition’s home-based message.
Print sales will continue into July and beyond if necessary while the original paintings will only remain at the Okotoks Municipal Centre until the end of June. Eventually, the originals will take their place in the new Rowan House once it is completed.
Sherrie Botten, executive director of Rowan House, said she was grateful to learn her organization would receive the paintings.
