Niagara Arts Showcase

Niagara Arts Showcase

The new Battlefield Centre (formerly Lundy’s Lane Church) is holding a General Meeting, hosted by Niagara Arts Showcase on July 20th, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.  The purpose of the meeting is to encourage local artists, musicians, theatre performers and cultural groups to occupy the space!  Interested parties are encouraged to attend!

 

NIAGARA ARTS SHOWCASE

Although Niagara Falls is far more famous for overpriced hotel rooms, Casinos and tourist taxes, it is still the playground for millions of people who travel from far and wide to purvey our mighty water features and the carnival like atmosphere surrounding them.   Dotted amongst the landscape are hundreds of shops selling chachkies and overpriced baubles to the gullible that want to take home a souvenir of their visit.  So how does fine art push through the noise to stake a claim?

The recently formed Niagara Arts Showcase or NAS is working together with the city and the Arts and Council board to ensure that Niagara artists will no longer be in the background.  NAS was the brainchild of Phil and Lori Lococo, two civic minded citizens who were approached to take The Carmel Fine Arts Festival to the next level.  The two are entrenched in community activities including Project Share and The Soup Kitchen and pretty much anywhere they are needed.

“Torena Gardner-Durdle, the founder of the Carmel Fine Arts Festival was struggling to keep the annual event alive  due to several other projects she had been inspired by,  Lori and I decided to put together a non-profit organization to help it continue and to promote other art and artist driven events in Niagara Falls,” comments Phil. “The city’s official plan was to partner with the arts community and thought the board would be a great idea to help facilitate it”, he adds.  Gardner-Durdle is now co-owner of the mystical, magical Fae Nature store at 4990 Queen Street in Niagara Falls, a must see if you are in the area. 

The newly formed board that holds bi-weekly meetings in the Business Centre across from City Hall is dedicated to the promotion of local artists whether they are visual, musical, theatrical or literary and will be hosting, organizing and promoting a number of Art based events throughout the year to ensure our more creative citizens get their shot at notoriety.  The board is a collective of dedicated culture buffs consisting of Artists, Musicians, Media Reps and Business people who are all willing to give up some of their precious time to ensure that our homegrown talent gets an opportunity to be showcased. The board also is dedicated to ensuring that our local artists get properly compensated for their work as well.  Grant applications have been submitted and a drive for public donations is underway in order to give NAS the funding it needs to pay for websites, promotion, insurance and a host of other expenses that go along with running an organization like this.

St. Catharine’s has a community artist’s center (NAC or the Niagara Artists Centre) and venue’s such as Rodman Hall and the Marilyn I Walker School of Art not to mention the newly opened First Ontario Performing Arts Centre and is supported by the city with a monthly newsletter called Culture Ink.  Niagara Falls is bereft of many of the publicly funded venues that support the local arts.  Although, the recently renovated Niagara Falls History Museum, has made great strides in promoting our homegrown artists and musicians with art exhibits, cultural events and courtyard performances on Thursday evenings along with free admission and is called “ @ The Museum”.  Clark Bernat the museum’s curator has been instrumental in the push and recently organized workshops to help budding artists with the business side of things.  Niagara Falls City council has also made $20,000 in grants available to fund local arts projects.

Most recently NAS organized for 15 plus Niagara Artists to set up on Queen Street on Canada Day, the event  which was attended by an estimated 20,000 people from all over Southern Ontario, was a huge success.  

NAS will be working with the Niagara Falls History Museum’s annual “Night of Art” in September this year and are in current negotiations with Heartland Forest to add an art and music element to their Family Day event in February.

Late in May Niagara Falls added a new art gallery to its fold, The Thunder Gallery resides in Pyramid Place right next to Club Seven, a popular dance club.  Marenko Jareb is one of the owners and the gallery showcases both local and international artists.

In 2017 the board will host The Carmel Fine Arts Festival that has recently lost its home in the Mount Carmel Centre. Several venues for the CFAF have already been considered, including Heartland Forest, Pyramid Place and possibly Lundy’s Lane United Church currently renamed The Battlefield Centre.  The church has recently been purchased by a group hoping to turn it into a hub where the arts are showcased on a regular basis.  NAS is holding a meeting there on July 20th at 6:00 p.m. for people interested in helping facilitate the occupancy which will range anywhere from aerial acrobatics, native drumming and a potential film school.  All are encouraged to attend.  More information is available on the NAS website at http://www.niagaraartsshowcase.com/

By Jenifer Cass

Gobeweekly.com Niagara’s Entertainment Source