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B8 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, July 7, 1999 mMs & Entertainment O R R IPT A I M T T niA « p r w « r » l ? O R T H P nAKXTTT I PT PirN TTO V E T 'i D T u c D e D u n D M iM P a d t -oOFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR OF THE OAKVILLE CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Oakville Beaver Entertainment Editor: Carol Baldwin 845-3824 (Extension 254) Fax: 337-5567 New captain aft Gillian McIntyre takes over as executive director o f the Oakville Arts Council Gillian McIntyre is the new executive director of the Oakville Arts Council. Photo by Barrie Erskine By Carol Baldw in ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR A new job is exciting; evencleaning out your predeces­sor's office and adding your personal touch can be exhilarating. Although Gillian McIntyre has been on the job for over a month now, she continues to add her personal touch to the executive director's office at the Oakville Arts Council (OAC). As the new OAC director settles in and learns the ropes, she is also plan­ ning future projects. But to plan those projects, the long-time Oakville resident decided to first settle upon a definition for "arts council." And in the short time she has been at the helm of Oakville's council, McIntyre has determined that it is an umbrella organization that acts as a resource for the community. Also, she says, it offers community programming and links member groups (the OAC has close to 50) to one another and to information. "We're there for the network - shared resources, shared information, helping create partnerships, putting people in touch with other people who can help one another," McIntyre explains, adding that she would also like to continuing offering such out­ reach programs at the literary anti­ racism program, Telling a Different Story that she facilitated last year. Advocacy work and lobbying for local arts groups is another role McIntyre would like to see the OAC continue, along with helping those groups apply for and secure govern­ ment grants. "Facilitate is a good word for what an arts council does. We have the administrative skills. We can help people get sponsorships. We can help people get grants," she says. "It's one of those organizations that, because it's an umbrella organization, it does all sorts of different things. It can become unmanageable if you're not careful. So I think it's time to evalu­ ate. You need to have an idea of what you are and where you're going." Since the OAC wears so many hats, McIntyre would like to evaluate the current role of the OAC and see if anything needs to be changed - added, subtracted or enhanced. "Eval­ uate ourselves while I've still got fresh vision," she quips. Then, once she has done the evalu­ ation and determined the OAC's direction and its role in the communi­ ty, she wants to spread the word, especially to those Oakvillians who are not sure what the OAC is or does. And consequently, she wants to boost the organization,^ profile. Currently, she says, the Oakville Arts Council is highly rated by the Ontario Arts Council. In fact, the local group receives money from the provincial council as well as from the town. But right now its fund-raising efforts are concentrated on the endowment fund in which all monies raised, to a maximum of $25,846, will be matched by the provincial government. "We're half way through that," says McIntyre, adding that the OAC would like to raise the maximum amount before the government's dol- lar-for-dollar match disappears in September, 2000. "We're actually doing quite well with that... We just got about $14,700 from the Mayor's Awards dinner...I think we'll get there." McIntyre comes to the OAC from the Art Gallery of Ontario where she was education officer, a job she land­ ed after earning her masters degree in Museum Studies, specializing in edu­ cation. And, it's a job she liked. So, giving it up for the OAC was a diffi­ cult decision. "It was a very interesting place to work, and the resources there are magnificent," she says, adding, "But, I live here, in this community. And it actually feels right for me to invest myself in the community I live in...I think I'm going to enjoy this very much. I really am." At the AGO, her specialty was youth programming, and part of her long-range plan for the OAC is to implement more art programs for youth. 'The arts, and I don't just mean visual arts, are extremely useful to work through all sorts of things...to deal with contentious issues...You have more freedom in the arts to explore," she says, noting that a recent study estimated teens would be the biggest part of the population by the year 2008. "Teenagers, I think, are under-serviced." And since teenagers in particular, but adults as well, are turning to the computer for much of their informa­ tion, and even some of their art, McIntyre is keen on setting up "a manageable web page...I've already made links with arts councils in Flori­ da. And I understand there are some really lively arts councils in Aus­ tralia," she says. "I want to go to England for a cou­ ple of weeks in the summer, so I'll go visiting...go find out what works and what doesn't work." In the end, says the enthusiastic mother of three, her new job is to fol­ low the mission statement of the OAC, which is, she says, "To improve the quality of life in the Town of Oakville by encouraging and facilitating arts and cultural activity." For more information on the OAC, call 815-5977. Bethan Boats, Watercolours, and a New Outdoor Text Work By Diane Hart SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Photo by by John Bauld Behind and beside artist Bethan Huws as well as in her hands is some the art in her exhibition at Gairloch Gallery entitled Bethan Huws: Boats, Watercolours, and a New Outdoor Text Work, which will continue in the gallery at 1306 Lakeshore Rd. E., until Aug. 1st For more information about this exhibit or gallery hours, contact Oakville Galleries at 844-4402. works in brilliant metallic colours that gallery watchers can walk on. Like Andre, Huws is no detached artist in the ivory tower whiling away a few hours. She firmly believes in breaking down any barriers between artists and viewers and letting the work be as accessible as possi­ ble. "For her, making the boat is like making art," said Perinet. There is, in Boat, a sense of order, grace and simplicity. It is difficult, standing in the interior of Gairloch Gallery, to imagine a better place for her work. Although the works on paper continue with the same theme - that of circular elements - she broadens it to make almost a new language, one that resonates much like a mujical score on paper. And then she takes the language, literally, outside in her language piece, lllocution. She is an artist who aims to speak to all of us directly and simply and, at first, you wonder just what is going on with a piece almost hidden on the breakwater. But, according to guest cura­ tor Gregory Salzman, Huws is not interested in providing a public sign that advertises, or deliv­ ers a message. In fact, it is difficult to know where it begins and ends. Says Salzman, in the exhibit booklet: "...The form of thinking in neither prescriptive nor descriptive nor poetical but has the aspect of an anonymous interlocutor thinking to himself about certain things that are not readily repre­ sentable..." He says Huws is an artist who has said she wants to make art that makes us feel at home in the world, an interesting departure from so many artists today who are keen to make us try to understand the world in which we live. With Boat, in particular, it happens. Salzman says, "The qualities of simplicity, economy and resourcefulness (making do and making art with simple common materials that are close at hand)...are intrinsic to Huws' aes­ thetic. Her art joins craft (skill and practical knowl­ edge) with consciousness (the unity of reflec­ tion, feeling and understanding)..." Bethan Huws: Boats, Watercolours and a New Outdoor Text Work runs until Aug. 1st in Gairloch Gallery. If you head to the lakeside Gairloch Gallery for what you think are traditional water­colours, you may be disappointed. But if you want a glimpse into an intriguing Welsh artist's view of what art is and how it operates, you just may find a pleasant surprise in Bethan Huws: Boats, Watercolours, arid a New Outdoor Text Work, on view until Aug. 1st. Boat is clearly the strongest piece in the exhibit, a tiny sculpture that the artist has been making repeatedly and continuously over the past decade. Since 1989, she has made minuscule boats, displayed at Gairloch in three glass cases, from a single piece of grass wound around itself. The circular movement of the work is seen else­ where - in her works on paper and in her own idea of art and life as intertwined and inex­ orably linked to one another. She is not at all a dispassionate, academic artist; she veers away from the idea of artist as above the crowd in any way. The display of her work is exquisite; stand away from it just a little and you can appreciate the location in the quiet confines of Gairloch Gallery. All of the tiny works of art contained within glass boxes above the ground are exactly at eye level with the outside. The boats in the tiny glass boxes seem almost to be moored out on Lake Ontario. As director of Oakville Galleries, Francine Perinet, says, it is vital that the work be dis­ played at this time of year, with the luminous quality of the light. Without the exterior, she continued, the interior would die. She couldn't imagine the work, say, exhibited at 3 p.m. on a winter's day. And it is here, in this one image, that Huws makes her point; that one is meaningless with­ out the other; that life on the outside can never be detached from what is going on inside the artist. Little wonder she is an ardent admirer of artist Carl Andre, famous for making floor New captain aft By Carol Baldwin Bethan By Diane Hart