MacLaren offers something for everyone: MACLAREN MATTERS column
By CAROLYN BELL FARRELL
Thank you. With the generous support of hundreds of individuals and businesses, and our 228 volunteers, the MacLaren Art Centre achieved its 2011 goals.
We presented 31 exhibitions, including 19 community shows, and delivered 688 arts education activities for 21,326 children and youth, including 8,985 students through VanGo, and offered 31 public activities for adult audiences.
By year's end, we engaged 56,254 people in our programs at the gallery, in the schools and in the community.
We are thrilled that so many of you have made the MacLaren part of your lives.
We look forward to offering a wide range of creative, social and intellectual activities for audiences of all ages in 2012.
On display in the Carnegie Room and Gallery 3 through Feb. 20 is Interiors of Place by Simcoe County artist and educator Joanna McEwen.
This series of 52 exquisite egg-tempera paintings was produced between 2003 and 2011 and meticulously records the interiors of historic rural churches in Oro-Medonte Township and, by extension, the tremendous social networks that supported them.
Plans are underway to publish an 80-page book that matches the depth of this artist's commitment, with support from community members. Joanna's work is paired with a solo show by rising London, Ont., artist Kelly Wallace, whose intricate drawings fuse memory and imagination in his renderings of evocative, if unstable, landscapes.
Terminal is on display in the Janice Laking Gallery until Feb. 26. Organized by curator Melanie Townsend for Museum London in 2010, it has been reprised at the MacLaren with new work and is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Ihor Holubizky and Ben Portis.
For those who would like to hear the artists speak about their practice in more detail, Joanna leads a public tour of her show on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 1 p.m. and Kelly leads a tour of his show on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. Curatorial tours of the current shows by Ben Portis also take place next Thursday, Jan. 19 and Thursday, Feb. 9 at 12:30 p.m. Starting this month, a selection of works from our collection by esteemed Canadian artist Alex Colville is on display in the Joan Lehman Gallery.
Colville's 'Book of Hours, Labours of the Month' offers a contemporary interpretation of the medieval calendar that defined the tasks of agrarian societies.
Our winter session of art classes for children, youth and adults led by professional regional artists also begins this month. TGIF, our free after-school art program for youth, resumes with artist Meghan Thorpe, and Family Sunday workshops with Theresa Bott start up again tomorrow.
Our Youth Council is planning our March 30 Coffee House. Volunteers between 18 and 24 are welcome.
This month, find out what your art gallery has to offer.
Carolyn Bell Farrell is executive director of the MacLaren Art Centre.