By Greg Nikkel
Curator Regan Lanning loves art in her life, and loves bringing art of all kinds to the residents of Weyburn, members of the Weyburn Rotary Club heard in a presentation on Thursday.
She noted from the start she spent a year as an exchange student for the Weyburn club about 20 years ago.
As the curator, she organizes programs and installs the art in the city’s three art galleries, which include the Allie Griffin Art Gallery on the lower level of the Weyburn Public Library, the Signal Hill Art Gallery on the second floor of the Signal Hill Arts Centre, and the Credit Union gallery, located in the Weyburn Credit Union building.
Lanning noted that first-time exhibitors will often get their start in the Credit Union gallery, where she will help them organize it and set it up. More well-known local artists are often featured in the Signal Hill gallery, and exhibitions that are significant provincially or nationally are shown in the Allie Griffin gallery, along with local works for the annual James Weir People’s Choice Art Exhibition, which is coming up again in January 2018.
She gets assistance from groups like OSAC (Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils), through which she can get exhibitions from well-known artists that she otherwise could not afford to bring in, such as a show by Joe Fafard that is coming in 2019.
Lanning also works with the Weyburn Arts Council, and with local arts groups, such as the Weyburn Concert Series, where she will try to feature some local art that connects in some way with the concert that evening.
There are several local arts events or exhibitions she helps with as well, giving as an example the Four Festive Floors art and craft sale held over the weekend at Signal Hill, and coming up, the James Weir exhibition, for which entries are now being taken.
Lanning noted in her first year as the curator, the James Weir show had about 400 votes, which she thought was dismally low, so for the next year, she organized school tours to be a part of the month or exhibition, and last year the show had close to 1,000 votes, with about 350 of those coming from the school groups that had tours of the show.
She was able to talk about art relevant to the grade level that was touring, for example when a Grade 5 class came through, she spoke about pop culture and its effects on art.
After the People’s Choice show, there will be the art adjudication event in the spring, and she is arranging for two art professionals to come to adjudicate the show, and talk to the artists “on how to take art to the next level”.
Last year, the adjudication event had 28 artists who each entered five pieces of art, displayed at Signal Hill.
In the summer, as next year the Art Farm event will no longer be running, she will be organizing the “Party on the Hill” art event as a part of the Wheat Festival at the Signal Hill Arts Centre. She had 27 artists showing and selling art this past summer, and about 400 people came through to see the art.
“Coming up in 2018, I will have a new show, called ‘Wearable Art-icles’. As long as you can put it on, it counts,” said Lanning, noting she will be featuring this for next year’s Culture Days event in late September.
Lanning noted she has an arts and culture show on Access, entitled “Adventures in Art”, that airs every Sunday on the community channel. It is videotaped on location around Weyburn, featuring studio visits and scenes from art events in the city.
“The Weyburn art scene was very fractured. We got everybody back at the table and we’re communicating with each other. For a long time, we were scheduling events for the same evening,” she said, adding that now they try to coordinate events so they can help each other.
Asked about City of Weyburn’s Permanent Art Collection, Lanning noted the city has been collecting art work since the 1960s, and they are stored in a climate-controlled room in the basement at City Hall. She schedules shows every year using pieces from the City’s collection, plus there are works from the collection on display at City Hall and other city buildings.
In answer to a question, she said the boardwalk banner project was on poles near the Soo Line Historical Museum which were damaged in a recent windstorm. The poles will be replaced and the banners will continue to be on display over the next two years.
