The Sooke Salmon Festival is calling all artists in Sooke for its latest banner competition – of which four artists’ works will be handpicked and displayed in the town core.
The event, organized by Elida Peers of the Juan de Fuca Salmon Restoration Society, aims to stimulate an artistic feel in the Sooke core, with the symbolism of salmon.
“One of our society’s first objectives on the umbrella grant application we made to Heritage Canada for Canada 150 funding assistance was to provide Sooke with salmon-themed banners,” Peers said.
From submissions, four will be affixed to the district’s utility poles in central Sooke and on Wadams Way. Entry deadline is July 18, with the winners announced Aug. 1.
Judging the banner designs will be done by spouses of local politicians – MLA John Horgan’s wife, Ellie; Mayor Maja Tait’s husband, Alex Tait; Juan de Fuca Electoral Area Director Mike Hicks’ wife, Kathy; and T’Sou-ke First Nation chief Gord Planes’ wife, Marcella.
So what does it take to make a successful banner? Just ask Monique Bosse, owner of Sooke Ink Tattoo in Otter Point.
“When doing logos, you have to do it so it can be used multi-purpose,” she said. “First, you gotta do the sketch, then a hard copy, but you have to work on it until it looks right.”
Bosse’s work won the banner competition last time around in 2000, when the District of Sooke was looking for a logo to properly represent the region.
The logo idea started out from a painting called Pristine Sooke (which the Capital Regional District later bought from Bosse) which showed the Sooke Basin.
“That’s when it just came to me. I thought, ‘that would be a perfect logo ... [nature] is why we’re all here,’ so I took it from there and made it simple,” she said, adding that she designed it in such a way that it could be printed and used on just about anything, even in black and white formats.
Aside from banners, Bosse’s tattoo work is seen everywhere in Sooke, whether it’s on people’s arms, legs, back, or neck, and it all started with a simple sketch.
“I started drawing at a very young age, and I just kept doing it ... so I’ve been an artist all my life,” she said, adding that she’s done all kinds of artwork, and workshops, including working with clay.”
How to enter
Dimensions of the fabric banners are 20x58 inches, and the entrant must present design in colour to encompass the entire area of the banner, in order to be viewed from either direction when printed. Entry forms can be printed from salmonforsooke.ca or picked up at the Sooke Region Museum, or Charters River Salmon Interpretive Centre, 2895 Sooke River Rd. For more info, email at: admin@jdfcharterssalmon.com or via 250-642-4200.