Pirjo Raits
Sooke News Mirror
Materials and surface and form combine to become a visual language for artist/potter Sharon Bussard-Grove. Discovering new ways of doing old things is what artists crave and what makes their work successful and so it is with Bussard-Grove’s ceramics. Some pieces are whimsical and functional, others are a discovery made while experimenting with clay, glazes and form all inspired by nature.
Artist Mary Coakley described Bussard-Grove and her work, “she is a brilliant potter of large, unusual and amazingly glazed things.”
Bussard-Grove is just one of the 26 Sooke artists and arts council members who are combining their talents for a two-month exhibition and sale of their work over the winter.
Beginning on November 2, about 20 members of the arts council will be taking part in their annual Winter Art Show & Sale. This year their work will be exhibited at the Reading Room Cafe. The show will run from November 2 to January 3, 2015.
The show will have everything from arts to fine crafts.
“There are lots of recognizable local people,” said Bussard-Grove.
She mentioned a few members; Len Platt, Mary Coakley, Linda Gordon, Michel DesRochers and Amber Lomax.
Lomax’s work, she said, is really catching on and she was a featured artist at the Apple Fest.
Bussard-Grove will also be showing her ceramic art.
All of the artists who will be showing are talented and their work is of high calibre.
The Sooke Community Arts Council is starting a whole new era and coming into the 21st Century. They are on Facebook and will be on Twitter and they have a whole new website page in the works.
New energy and focus is leading the group, of about 40, to book art shows, gain new members, mentor and brainstorm.
“It’s a brand new council and we’re excited to be starting new,” said Sharon Bussard-Grove, president of the SCAC.
Bussard-Grove said new members seem to be coming in daily and that is exciting.
She said the SCAC is perfect for those who are doing art and making art and one doesn’t need to be a professional, just “someone who loves to do it.” Helping each other and working together is paramount to the success of the arts council.
The Sooke Community Arts Council is an umbrella organization that embraces all of the arts, from fine art, to theatre, dance and orchestras. Their mandate is to encourage participation in all the arts, develop opportunities to perform and exhibit and they serve as advocates for the arts to local, provincial and federal authorities.
Their boundaries stretch across the Sooke region from Port Renfrew to East Sooke and everywhere in-between.
The SCAC is a registered not-for-profit society funded by the BC Arts Council and the District of Sooke. The arts council was founded in 1987 by a group of artists and non-artists. The SCAC gives small grant-in-aid not only to member groups and individual members but to members of the community who seek funding for art-related endeavors.
The next meeting of the Sooke Community Arts Council takes place on Tuesday, November 4 at the Potlatch Room at the Sooke Harbour House at 7 p.m.