Art exhibit at SMP Sports Centre
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Though an unexpected but welcome scheduling change, a new professional art exhibition how hangs in the walking track of the Strathmore Motor Products Sports Center.
Dubbed “Vital Patterns” by the Alberta Society of Artists, the exhibition contains 15 pieces that display patterns found in nature on an assortment of different media, presented in a range of presented sizes.
George Freeman School associate principal, Jill McDonald, said she is excited for the opportunity it presents to the students to have the display mounted in the facility.
“Our school is connected to the sports center and we work with the town staff at the sport center all the time. We’ve talked a lot about how it would be really cool to have some artwork up around the track,” she said.
“There’s an organization called TREX (Alberta Travelling Exhibition Program), which is travelling exhibits that go through Alberta and we had tried to get one earlier in the year, but they were booked up. There was a cancellation, so we were able to sneak an exhibit in.”
Students were not informed prior to the exhibit being hung on the walls of the walking track due to the extremely short notice of confirmation.
Though George Freeman is a school more well-known for its sports, due to being connected to the sports center, McDonald iterated the facility still values all facets of student learning, development and growth.
She said there are lesson plans that will come along with the exhibit which will have students working through creative arts of their own.
“The arts is something that’s really important for kids and so we just wanted to find a way that we could highlight different art things and so viewing some professional art, we thought was a really cool opportunity,” said McDonald. “We really hope that it brings some appreciation and just inspires them a little bit. It’s not every day that students in Strathmore get to see some professional artwork in their school.”
Being hung at the walking track, the exhibit will be available to members of the community who also wish to drop in and observe it.
The exhibit is a first of its kind to be displayed within the facility and McDonald hopes it certainly will not be the last.
“We would love to have a rotation of different things going through the sports center. We would love to have more exhibits like this, we will really start to feature our students’ artwork up there sometimes and if there are other local artists that would like a spot to display some artwork for a period of time, we think that would be really great,” said McDonald.
Vital Patterns will be on display in the Strathmore Motor Products Sports Centre from Nov. 8 – Dec. 12.