Figure yourself a businessy-type?

Dragon’s Den will be holding open auditions in Medicine Hat on Friday, February 22nd, 2013 looking for the next big thing for the hit series on CBC Television. Taking place from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre.

All interested entrepreneurs should be prepared to pitch their business in less than five minutes. If they can convince Dragon’s Den producers, they could be invited to brave the Dragons face-to face when season 8 is filmed in Toronto.

The auditions in Medicine Hat are one in around 40 stops in various Canadian cities. We’ve already had the Worst Driver, so why not redeem Medicine Hat by getting a participant on the Dragon’s Den?

More information with more audition dates and places here:
http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/auditions/

Which book should Medicine Hat residents read in October 2013? During the month of January, the One Book One Community committee is asking for suggestions of books for the eighth annual book discussion weekend which will take place in October 2013.

Every year Hatters come together to discuss a book and to enjoy activities based around the title. Like a citywide book club, One Book One Community offers readers opportunities to discuss the book, listen to guest speakers, and participate in activities that complement the book. Past books have included Obasan by Joy Kogawa, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark, The Englishman’s Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe, Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden and in October 2012, the chosen book was The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

Hatters are asked to make suggestions up to February 1, 2013. To be eligible, the book should be by a Canadian author, available in paperback and substantial enough to generate discussion. It can be fiction, non-fiction, biography, poetry or short stories. Suggestion forms will be available at Medicine Hat Public Library, the Vera Bracken Library at Medicine Hat College and at Coles Bookstore in the Medicine Hat Mall. Suggestions may also be submitted online at www.obocmh.ca The suggested titles are read and evaluated by volunteer readers and the committee. Once the book has been chosen, the title will be announced in the spring.

One Book One Community is cosponsored by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, City of Medicine Hat, Medicine Hat Public Library, Medicine Hat College and Coles Bookstore.

The Hive Boutique and Gallery Has Moved!

We will officially opened in The Esplanade on Wednesday December 5th. Our new gallery and boutique is located to the left of the main doors next to the Studio Theatre in the former Gift Shop space.

The studios will remain at the current second street location and will still be open to the public on Saturdays. All art classes will still be held at the classroom in the studios.

Come and check out our new location!

Our new hours will be as follows for each location:

Gallery and Boutique
401 First Street SE
Wednesday – Saturday
11:00am – 4:00pm
+advance of evening events

Studios and Classroom
569 Second Street SE
Saturday
11:00am – 4:00pm
+scheduled class times

Our Studios / Classroom are still located at our 2nd street location.

Image Credit: RandomHouse.ca

Steven Galloway, author of the acclaimed novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, will be the speaker at the eighth annual One Book One Community event.  This free event takes place on Friday, October 12 at 7.00 pm in the Esplanade Studio Theatre.

The evening will be introduced by Mayor Norm Boucher who carried out two United Nations Missions in Croatia in 1995 and Kosovo in 2001. He is conversant in Croat and makes regular visits to Croatia.

The Community Orchestra, conducted by Christine Bootland of the Conservatory of Music and Dance, will play Albinoni’s Adagio. Coles the Book People will have books available for sale and signing. Refreshments will be serving following the reading.

Book discussions and activities will take place on Saturday, October 13 in the Crowfoot Room at Medicine Hat College from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm. All events are free. Participants may bring their own lunch or purchase lunch at the College Cafeteria.

For more information, please go to www.obocmh.ca, or contact obocmh@gmail.com. This event is sponsored by Medicine Hat College, The City of Medicine Hat, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Medicine Hat Public Library, L.E.A.R.N., and The Esplanade.

Cover image: RandomHouse.ca

The One Book One Community Committee is pleased to announce that the 2012 book selection is The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. The 8th annual OBOC event will take place the evening of Friday October 12, 2012 at the Esplanade and continue on Saturday October 13 at Medicine Hat College with a day of activities and book discussions. Copies of the book are available for loan at the Medicine Hat College Libraries and Medicine Hat Public Library. The book can be purchased at Coles the Book People in Medicine Hat Mall and is included with some Medalta in the Historic Clay District memberships.

Nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2008, The Cellist of Sarajevo is set during the siege of Sarajevo in the 90’s. The book is inspired by the true story of Vedran Smailović, a cellist who plays daily amid the ruins to honour 22 people killed while waiting in a bread line. This gripping and unforgettable novel tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst.

One Book One Community is organized by representatives from Medicine Hat College, Medicine Hat Public Library, L.E.A.R.N., Community Employment Services, a division of REDI Enterprises Society, the Esplanade, FUT in the Hat, and interested members of the public. Past sponsorship for this event has been provided by the City of Medicine Hat and Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

For more information about One Book One Community, or to be involved in this year’s event, please contact Leigh Cunningham at 403-504-3654 or at LCunningham@mhc.ab.ca or visit the website at www.obocmh.ca.

The Esplanade Art Gallery is pleased to present two new exhibitions, Campbell Tinning: The Newfoundland Paintings and Landwash: Contemporary Newfoundland Art, on display until August 11. The opening reception on Friday, June 15, 2012 from 7 PM to 10 PM is part of the first Downtown Art Walk Roving Art Reception of the year.

Also, on Friday at 7 PM, the City’s Public Art Committee invites all to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the public art commission Reka (River) by Jess Riva Cooper and Rob MacInnis at Batus Park, on Second Street SE.

Campbell Tinning: The Newfoundland Paintings

Campbell Tinning was born in Saskatoon, in 1910. After studying art in Regina and New York, in 1941 he joined the Canadian Army Reserves and became a War Artist in the Historical Section of the Canadian Army. Just prior to being sent overseas, his first Army assignment was to record the east coast defenses, and in late 1943, he was sent to St. John’s, Newfoundland. He was so impressed by this brief visit that he wrote in his diary that he wanted to return and paint there in peacetime – and indeed he did, in 1949, following his service in Italy in 1944-45 as War Artist. Thirteen large watercolours in this exhibition were produced by Tinning during that summer of 1949, painted at Port aux Basques in July, and at Port de Grave in August and September. Tinning settled in Montreal after the war, and exhibited widely in North America in both solo and group exhibitions, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Mendel Art Gallery. Posthumously, his work was included in the national touring exhibition Canvas of War: Masterpieces from the Canadian War Museum. Esplanade Art Curator Joanne Marion comments, “These are strikingly bold paintings that impress visitors – 63 years after being painted – with the rugged beauty of Newfoundland.” This exhibition was curated by Heather Smith, and its tour organized by the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

The Esplanade Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of two new exhibitions, School Art 2012 and Tracy Bultje: Remnant, on display until June 10.

School Art 2012

School Art 2012 is here! The latest crop of art work from over 40 Medicine Hat and area schools is a rich and vibrant display of students’ talent and effort, from Kindergarten to Grade 12. It’s also a testament to the skill and dedication of teachers of art throughout the region. Come and enjoy the exuberance and artistic exploration in over 700 works in an astounding array of media.

Joanne Ellis, School Art organizer at the Esplanade Art Gallery, comments, “The annual School Art exhibition is only possible with the continued support of all the sponsors, presenters and jurors, and especially the students, teachers, and school administrators who nurture visual arts in our schools.”

The School Art 2012 reception takes place on Sunday May 6 at 1pm in the Gallery Foyer, followed at 1.30pm by the Awards Ceremony in the main Theatre Hall. Admission is free. Refreshments are a courtesy of Medicine Hat Catholic Separate Regional Division #20. Presentation materials are a courtesy of Medicine Hat School District #76.

Admission to the galleries is free during School Art 2012 thanks to Cenovus Energy.

Tracy Bultje Remnant

Tracy Bultje’s recent paintings are large and dramatic, evoking the colourful and ground-breaking early 20th century Canadian Group of Seven. But where the Group of Seven celebrated the Canadian ‘wilderness’ of their time, Tracy Bultje brings to vivid life the remnants of that landscape – the slivers of trees along the river near her home, treed fencerows, property lines and windbreaks. These are slender curtains of landscape with no depth which Tracy Bultje has rendered rich, complex and strikingly intense, defying their flatness with intricate patterning. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre is proud to announce the arrival of River Heights School grade 5 classes for a week of learning.

They are participating in the Open Minds Education Concept, and will be taking part in various cultural activities in and around the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre until Friday. The idea behind the concept is to extend the educational experience beyond the school, and engage students in hands-on learning activities relating to the Esplanade’s multi-disciplinary facility.

The theme for the week is storytelling. Some of the activities they will take part in include: uncovering a math trail in the Museum using early Eaton’s catalogues, listening to pioneer oral histories in the Archives, touring brick murals in the downtown with sculptor James Marshall, making video in the Studio Theatre and more.

This program is open to what the teacher can envision using the Esplanade and downtown as a classroom. “ On Monday, the students listened to the Museum Curator talk about Black pioneers in Western Canada. They were very enthusiastic and had numerous questions,” explains Rhonda Wiebe-Batiuk, Education Coordinator at the Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre. The teacher, Allison Jeal, remarked that the students were very engaged and focused in the Galleries.

Locally, there are several participating organizations. This concept is used in many major centres including Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, London Ontario, and in a variety of locations such as Zoos, Museums, Stampede Grounds, City Halls etc.

The Esplanade Art Gallery is pleased to present two new exhibitions, Deanna Bowen’s Stories to Pass On… and 365 Collective’s Relate, on display until April 15. There will be a public opening reception on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7 PM. Also, in conjunction with Deanna Bowen’s art exhibition and to celebrate Black History Month, there will be an illustrated presentation by the Museum Curator, Robert Bruce Shepard, entitled “Black Pioneers of Western Canada” on Wednesday February 29 at 7 PM.

Deanna Bowen: Stories to pass on…

Inspired by a road trip to Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama in which she retraced her great grandparents’ slave roots and migration to Alberta, Ontario artist Deanna Bowen created two multimedia works about slavery-based trauma, family estrangement, community, and telling personal truths. Gospel (2007-2008) is a song of loss and longing which combines photographs of found hymn books, a sculptural/audio work, and Hollywood movie footage into a semi- autobiographical exploration of a daughter’s rejection of mother, family, and home. In Shadow on the Prairie (2009), Deanna Bowen mixes her own family story and that of the seminal 1952 Royal Winnipeg Ballet of the same name. The ballet evokes a young woman’s struggle in the harsh conditions of pioneer life, with which Bowen intertwines an exploration of a family rumour about her great uncle, a closeted gay actor & nightclub singer who played in all-black revues of Vancouver’s supper club circuit in the 1930s – 1950s. Deanna Bowen is a descendant of the Alabama and Kentucky born Black Prairie pioneers of Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. She is a Toronto based interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited internationally in numerous film festivals and galleries. Stories to pass on… is touring Canada through a collaboration with the Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ontario, and is accompanied by a publication. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »

The Esplanade Museum and Esplanade Archives are proud to present Our Chinese Heritage in the Heritage Gallery, three exhibits which honor Chinese Canadian contributions to the development of Western Canada. The exhibits will be open during regular operating hours from January 29 to April 22, 2012. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, January 29 beginning at 2:00 PM and everyone is welcome.

The three exhibits include “Upstairs at Wah Lee’s” which is a collection of historic photographs from the C.S.Wing Studio in Quesnel, British Columbia. Mr. Wing was the first professional photographer in that community. The exhibit illustrates his interaction with other residents of the town as well as chronicling its early days. Another exhibit is “Chop Suey on the Prairies” which was produced by the Royal Alberta Museum and is a salute to the small town Chinese Restaurant; an icon in many communities across the Canadian Plains. The third exhibit is “A Century of Chinese Restaurants in Medicine Hat” and features photographs from the Esplanade Archives collection which document the long standing presence, and contributions, of these establishments in our community.

We are entering “The Year of the Dragon” in the traditional Chinese calendar and the Esplanade Museum along with the Esplanade Archives are celebrating our Chinese heritage. In addition to the three exhibits, Mr. Siew Mak will be demonstrating traditional Chinese brush painting during the reception.