By Max Himsl
Whereas last week we looked at some of the shadowy clique that are the power behind the throne at Art Farm IV, this week, we examine two figures known as “The Chairman” and the “Vice Chairman.”
Gaining access to the eminent pair is very difficult, involving travel to a remote rural location and being escorted by something that may have been a shaved Yeti past many layers of high security dogs and surveillance cats and through no less than two doors. Both figures wear the flat black of the midnight-house-breaker, the ninja assassin and the most deeply conservative fundamentalist artist; all people to be viewed with suspicion and mistrust.
Faced with the threat of the reporter’s pen, both are at first truculent and unwilling to speak more than monosyllables and it is only after being made reckless by a second cup of tea that they begin to make bold pronouncements.
“The aim of Art Farm IV is to change minds,” says Heather. “We have in place a ‘Kids Rural Art Program’ where we teach children to combine individual art works into a greater whole. Our agents have infiltrated many schools and we are changing the way children think about what it means to be creative and how the work of one may add to the work of many.”
The master plan calls for an aggressive campaign of artistic instruction throughout the surrounding school districts, spreading a subversive message of creative freethinking and open-minded cooperation amongst vulnerable and impressionable children.
While vice chairman Heather leads up the campaign of infiltration and subversion of the school children, chairman Rickee-Lee organizes the much more ambitious Art Farm IV re-education camp.
Here, she explains, is where the gullible family members will be drawn in by the programmed and re-educated children, enticed into the examination of beauty and joy in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.
“Once we have them on the grounds,” Rickee-Lee says “we bombard them with exotic stimuli from every side.”
“With every sense stimulated, from joyful noise to stunning imagery to decadent taste, minds become soft and pliable and we will remake the consciousness of every thinking being until they become huge, incredible fantastical, turnigdibal, gardaculationary, barbarbarGAKkk …” The chairman is helped to a chair where she is calmed and soothed until the shaking and foaming cease.
The vice chair steps in smoothly. “What she means,” says Heather, “is that Art Farm IV will be a lot of fun.”
“Don’t be the person that says ‘I missed it, I forgot’.”
ArtFarm IV will be held June 11, 2016, 1-8 p.m. Admission is a toonie, with ages six and under free. It is located at the van der Breggen farm, located south on Highway 35, west on TWP080 south at white barn. Van rides will be available every hour from the mall.
Residents who are interested in volunteering, sponsoring or donating can email [email protected]. For more information on ArtFarm, check out their website www.ArtFarmfestival.com or ArtFarm Facebook page.
