One Night Only Art Show… For the children.

I was lucky enough to go to summer camp from grade 6 to grade 11. The Durham Board of education ran a ten day art camp in the wilds of Haliburton and it was amazing. It was also affordable because it was so short. It gave me a window into a world that I barely knew existed, save several educational viewings of ‘Meatballs’, the classic Bill Murray/Chris Makepeace buddy movie (which, as it turns out was filmed at the very camp of which I now speak/write).  The art camp took over Camp White Pine before ‘real’ camp season started in earnest. What made it so special, I think, was that everyone there, from grades 6 to 12, was art interested and selected for this great experience for their artistic achievements in school. Art classes of all sorts ran all day interspersed with sports. I did some cartooning and then went sailing, I sketched in the woods and then popped over for some archery… Tennis, then sculpting. Awesome, right?

I ended up a being a counselor a la Meatballs, and although our particular yearly camp life was short, it was fun. Damn fun. Super damn fun. I remember looking at the names scrawled on the walls of the cabins, repeated in different color pens, sometimes marking several years of attendance. Those were the real campers. They were there for a whole summer. Every summer. That seemed amazing to me. It was like an unseen  subculture had revealed its existence to me through these yearly notations on the walls. I was and am glad to have had the experience of summer camp. I loved everything about it and it was part of shaping me.  Summer camp may seem like a luxury, and it certainly is in a lot of ways, but it shouldn’t seem inaccessible for children of less moneyed families.

For several years running I have been a part of a very cool art show that helps to send young campers to the incredible Taylor Statten Camps in Algonquin Park. This years show is this Thursday night. If you can make it out, please come and help us give some deserving youths an experience of a lifetime. I have some new works appearing for the first time here. Here is one of ’em.

Are you ready for the summer?

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‘Bowles Bluff Road, Beaver Valley’, 48″x36″, oil on board

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