The Citizen, 2007-12-06, Page 30Wingham’s art scene is getting a
little help from its friends. Help in
the form of a student co-operative art
gallery.
F.E. Madill students, with the help
of Greg Sherwood, have set up a
gallery in Wingham called
Perspectives where they can show
off their talents and hopefully raise
some money towards honing them.
After a grand opening last
Saturday that featured art, music and
food, the gallery is ready to open for
business.
The gallery sits at the corner John
and Josephine Streets and will be
open for the month of December,
showcasing the fruits and labours of
Huron County’s young minds.
The gallery is for the students by
the students, as they all took shifts to
make the gallery happen from start
to finish on their own, doing small
renovations, painting, framing and
furnishing all on their own.
The space was donated for the
month by Murray Simpson, and
several other contributions, like
furniture and paint, were also
donated by local businesses.
The whole project was brought
about by Sherwood to raise
awareness and funds towards the
betterment of the arts program at
F.E. Madill.
“The idea is to first, show
everyone what they can do, because
often kids work away at these things
at school in anonymity and nobody
knows what kind of amazing work
they do, so that would give the
community a chance to see what
these kids are capable of with little
to no equipment,” he said. “They’re
basically working with their own
cameras and of course, the second is
to point out the need for our
fundraising project, the fact that we
have no cameras, we have no digital
storage devices, we have no laptops.
“We have a photography course
happening in second semester. I have
30 students in the class and one
camera. So it’s pointing out the need
we have for equipment and pointing
out to the public what these students
can do with what little they have.”
The gallery will be open business
hours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. from
Monday to Saturday until Dec. 22
and will be staffed wholly by the
student co-operative. People are
welcome to come in and browse the
gallery, and ultimately, the students
are hoping that their work will peak
the interest of the public so that they
might want to buy a print or fill out a
donation card.
“Fundraising will happen through
the sale of prints, people can walk
into the gallery, which is operating
as a business and students will take
orders for prints in three sizes.
They’re professional prints, done by
Elizabeth’s in Goderich that can
usually be picked up within the
week. So that’s one way that people
can support us, because with the sale
of a print, half of the money goes
straight to the photographer for them
to invest into their own equipment
and the other half goes into our
general fundraising campaign,” he
said. “The other way is through
donation forms that we have
available at the gallery or on the
school’s website, a donation for
which they will receive a tax
receipt.”
Sherwood is proud of his students
and how much work they have done,
but he doesn’t want the message to
be lost that the school needs some
help when it comes to their art
program. This is a program that he
hopes to begin running regularly, but
he would need students who are
equally enthusiastic.
“I think it could be a regular thing,
given the group of students. Now
this is an amazing group, it definitelyneeds to be said that these kids haveworked incredibly hard and they’revery dedicated to the cause, so if Iwere to have a group like this again,it could definitely be something we
could do annually or semi-annually,”
he said. “It wouldn’t even just have
to be photography either, which isthe focus on the first one, to put theemphasis on our need for equipment.I’m sure it could be shifted toinclude all of the things that we dohere. We’ll have to see how it goes,
but next year maybe we could
broaden our scope a bit.”
PAGE 30. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2007.
Welcome to our space
Madill art students have their own gallery. Perspectives opened on Saturday in Wingham.
(Shawn Loughlin photo)
Madill art students get gallery in Wingham
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By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen