The Synchronicity Festival opens this evening, Aug. 21, at Shirley Macey Park, Chamberlin Road near Gibsons and it runs until Sunday evening. You’ve got to see the schedule to believe how much music is offered – something for all tastes. There’s also a pop-up shop, art-making, a human foosball experience and workshops on topics such as xeriscaping with native plants and soap felting. Enjoy a brew, local food and performances from the Rainforest Circus – one on Friday, three on Saturday and three on Sunday. Gates open at 4 p.m. Friday. You can buy a ticket for one day or more. See www.synchronicityfestival.ca for concert schedules and advance tickets.
Art Stroll
The annual Art Stroll in Gibsons Landing adds music to the mix this year. Get yourself a handy-dandy list at a coffee shop or gallery of the many venues and businesses that invite you to visit from Aug. 21 to 23. The music schedule begins on Friday with Andrea Coates - ambient free jazz at noon. Charlotte Wrinch, singer/songwriter plays at 1 p.m.; Michelle Bruce and Gord Beynon - guitar/fiddle duo at 2 p.m.; Verna Chan - jazz vocalist and guitar at 3 p.m. On Saturday, Dave Taylor - 12-string guitar and harmonica plays at noon. Dottie Locks - singer/songwriter performs on Sunday at 1 p.m.; Simon Gidora and Hanna Crudele - violin duo at 2 p.m. and Bella Burnett - lively chord organ at 3 p.m.
Love at the Sundowner
Light Messages Publishing announces the Garden Bay launch of A Theory of Expanded Love by Coast author Caitlin Hicks in the Art Gallery at the Sundowner Inn, Saturday, Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. The novel has already garnered excellent industry reviews as well as best new fiction on iBooks. Hicks takes readers inside the malleable mind of Annie Shea, a quirky adolescent in 1963 in Pasadena, Calif., as Annie tests her family’s strict boundaries. Hicks will read from and answer questions about her novel, as well as perform a monologue from the play Six Palm Trees, a comedy-drama co-written with artist and long-time Coast resident Gordon Halloran. The play is a fictional story about the book’s Shea family. The renovated and restored heritage building, the Sundowner, overlooks the bay at 4339 Garden Bay Rd. See www.sundowner-inn.com.
MITL
Music in the Landing features local singer / guitarist Troy Mathews at the Gibsons Public Market from 4 to 6 p.m. At the Gazebo on the dock, enjoy original tunes from popular recording artist Lowry Olafson from 7 to 8 p.m. Saturday morning at 11 a.m. during the Art Stroll in the Landing stop by Pioneer Square, to hear the express version of Back Porch Reunion when Dale Stavroff, vocals, guitar, and Ian McLatchie, steel guitar, are joined by special guest Simon Paradis, vocals and guitar. Saturday evening’s usual Winegarden Park show will move to the Gazebo from 7 to 8 p.m. with the new group Whistle Stop. This gives you time to take in the evening show at the Synchronicity Festival in Shirley Macey Park. Sunday afternoon, bring your lawn chairs to the Gibsons Sunday Market and hear some tasty jazz with Karen Graves, vocals, sax, flute, and Budge Schachte.
River Rain and Story
River Rain, an exhibit by artist Kristjana Gunnars, opens at Gibsons Public Art Gallery on Thursday, Aug. 20 and runs to Sunday, Sept. 13 with an opening reception on Saturday, Aug. 22 from 2 to 4 p.m.
In the Eve Smart Gallery Dean Jones will be exhibiting his book illustrations: The Art of the Story.
Gunnars writes: “I feel the River Rain series of paintings will be highly appropriate to our rainy climate, as they were painted here and done in the interesting play of light our cloudy skies afford.”
Jones writes: “With an ancestry in the early comic books of the ‘30s, the graphic novel has been adapted to tell fantastical, strange and true to life stories. I present a series of 29 pages of sequential art telling the first chapter of a story called Unlucky.”
Home Sweet Art
From Aug. 26 thru to Sept. 27 artists, Brian Romer (Sechelt, My Way) and Pat Ridgway (Where I Live) will be exhibiting their work at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre. Both painters’ work is inspired by the natural beauty that surrounds them. Romer believes that his exhibit “reflects not only the beauty of the land and the sea, but also [his] very personal emotional connection to this most beautiful area.”
Ridgway is a self-professed environmental artist who believes that in subtle ways her paintings “are witness to a profound urgency to increase consciousness on this planet.”
The opening reception is on Wednesday, Aug. 26 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Doris Crowston Gallery in the Arts Centre, corner of Trail and Medusa in Sechelt. Check out the new website at www.sunshinecoastartscouncil.com or call 604-885-5412.
Fibre Camp
Registration closes Aug. 28 for this year’s Sunshine Coast Fibre Camp held at the Salvation Army camp at Langdale on Sept. 11 to 13. Should be lots of spinning, weaving, dyeing, felting and knitting. More details about the camp and contact info can be found at the Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild website: www.scswg.org.
Keep me posted
Send your notice of arts events by Tuesday at 5 p.m. for Friday’s newspaper to [email protected] or phone 604-886-4692.
