If you’ve walked past the Gaudi-inspired mosaic tile work at the St. Paul St. community garden, then you’ve seen some community art work created by Cool Arts Society.
The society is a locally created non-profit organization that provides art opportunities for adults living with developmental disabilities in the Central Okanagan. Since beginning in 2003, they have worked to ensure adult artists with developmental disabilities have had the chance to create, exhibit and sell their art work.
“Historically, we’ve produced a lot of community-based art projects, because for our first twelve years, Cool Arts didn’t have a permanent studio. We focused on outdoor installations and special projects such as the Sand Spiral, yarn-bombing, the BeeBox and Lamb to Loom projects,” says Artistic & Programming Director Rena Warren.
In 2015, the society moved into their first permanent studio, and has since outgrown that space. They have recently moved into a larger studio at the RCA.
“The new studio is twice the size of our first studio,” says Warren. “I’m very excited that this more spacious studio will now allow the artists to delve deeper into their chosen medium of practice, whether its fibre arts, sculpture, collage or painting.”
The move to the new studio has been made possible by community support for Cool Arts Society. “We want to celebrate the new studio with the artists, our volunteers and with our community supporters who make Cool Arts programming possible,” says Warren.
Cool Arts Society invites the community to join them in celebrating their new studio at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Friday, March 9 from 5 to 7 pm. The event showcased work created by Cool Artists and a speaker’s program.
For more information about Cool Arts Society or to find out how you can get involved, please contact us at info@coolarts.ca.
To report a typo, email: edit@kelownacapnews.com.
<>@KelownaCapNews
newstips@kelownacapnews.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.