Calendar

Mondays – 5:00 to 7:00 PM

Now until December 19, 2022
Drop-in: no pre-registration required

Experience the benefits of creative expression in a supportive group environment. No experience required.

Join us at our weekly open studio, each with its own theme, using a variety of art making mediums and techniques like mending, stitching, paint, collage, clay, found objects, 2d and 3d, weaving, and nature to explore what is immediate for you in the moment.

Making art together can support us to move through life’s challenges, helping us to grieve our losses, mitigate feelings of isolation and loneliness and reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety.

The sessions will be facilitated by Art Therapist Heidi Abbott, and Art Therapy Intern Farrell Elliot.  Heidi and Farell both have a love for the therapeutic, meditative, healing, and self-expressive attributes of creating together.

Everyone welcome, free, all supplies are provided.

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Tides & Moons: Herring Capital is a new animated art installation by Cindy Mochizuki that shares memories and stories from Japanese Canadian fishing and boat building families who populated Nanaimo shorelines before World War II.

Throughout her practice, Cindy has developed multi-media installations, fictional audio works, performances, animations, drawings, and social collaborations that relate to Japanese Canadian experiences in B.C and Japan. She works with members of these communities and often includes her paternal family’s history both within internment camps and as repatriated Japanese Canadians in Japan after the war.

In the early 1920’s Japanese Canadian fishers lived and worked in Nanaimo at Hammond Bay (also known as Kujira Bay), Departure Bay, Shack Island (a way station for salmon and coho fishers traveling north), and Saysutshun. While Nanaimo had been known as a coal town for half a century, it also had 43 Japanese herring salteries. Due to the unexplainable abundance of t

Our popular OCAC Members Show features 2D or 3D artwork, in any medium, no larger thatn 6″X6″X6′.

Join us in celebrating the miniature creations by local artists.  A perfect Christmas gift!

 Download the application here

The Silk Worm Club was founded in January 2000 by Vancouver Island silk painter Maureen Walker AFCA, of Pioneer Silk Studio. In 2017, to celebrate Canada’s 150th Birthday, the members of the club thought it was time to update the club’s name and image from the Silk Worms to the Vancouver Island Silk Painters. The Vancouver Island Silk Painters’ group currently has members from Campbell River, Comox, Whiskey Creek, Qualicum Beach, Parksville, Nanaimo and Sidney.

The Vancouver Island Silk Painters’ members are proficient and confident in the use of their chosen medium, dye on silk. They have a good grounding in traditional silk painting techniques such as outlining with resist, together with experience of more contemporary techniques like indirect painting and layering. Members also have a sound knowledge of design, composition and colour theory.

The group holds monthly meetings which include Show & Tell of recent paintings and a helpful critiquing session. This is a very active, enthusias

My name is Lori Schiersmann and I am an ELITE Certified OneStroke Instructor.  I live in Deep Bay, Vancouver Island with my husband of 43 years.

In 1996, painting started, quite literally, with “one stroke”. Who knew then, that Donna Dewberry, the creator of “One Stroke” would become my mentor and friend over the next 30 years.  As the years came and went I taught One Stroke, all over Vancouver Island, painted glass for fairs and markets, and went to the 2005 Convention in Florida,  and became an Elite One Stroke Instructor.

Then ‘Life’ happened…I discovered a vendor at the convention and discovered the ceramic, metallic paste…and that was the beginning of Tin Cup Art.com…I applied the One Stroke method to the ‘stroking of paste” on my glassware….I couldn’t stop, I evolved over the next 18 years…my glassware is still selling in many shops today.  But then…Covid shut down. Yes, we all know that we lost those years, however, that’s when I discovered on ‘social media’ that there were others

Called a “jazz sensation” by one writer, with another calling Heather Ferguson’s music, “lush, expertly performed, with an engaging setlist and…she will fill the room with her silky-smooth notes”. Heather’s journey to music was long and winding but the singer, based in Victoria, Canada, is becoming known for her interpretations of great 20th century songs.

A family move took Ferguson from Toronto to a new home in Victoria, Canada, where she was one of the first to enroll in jazz vocals at the Victoria Conservatory’s newly opened Chywll Contemporary School. After that it was just layers and layers of music for years after. During that time she found like-minded musicians who wanted to start a band so she cornered the great bassist Joey Smith at a gig one night to ask him to coach.

Under Joey Smith’s mentorship Heather eventually graduated to solo shows at Victoria’s storied Hermann’s Jazz Club and then to recording, and the release of singles on various streaming services with producer Wy