Guysborough’s ArtWorks East
How their “member over organization” ethos is spilling into the wider world
When we turned off of the main street in Guysborough and down to the marina, the colour and energy of ArtWorks East’s gallery made us gasp a little. It’s in the heart of a vibrant waterfront community nexus that includes not just the marina, but a restaurant, a brewery and a fish market.
On the day we arrived, ocean-themed murals were in progress on the walls of the water treatment plant in front of the gallery. One would depict the historic peoples of the county while the other would be an underwater world. Both were being done by local artists.
ArtWorks East is a nonprofit group founded in 2019 by artists who understood that by working together in an out of the way, sparsely populated county they could not only promote their own work, they could encourage others to come out of their basements and garages to declare themselves artists, too. As founding member Lois Ann Dort put it, “Plenty of people were doing great art work at home but keeping their light under a bushel.”
Include Everybody
From the outset the group welcomed anyone who wanted to join, regardless of age or skill level. Jack Leonard, the group’s president, credits well-known local organizer Nancy O’Regan with steering them in that direction.
Jack said, “We weren’t sure whether to become a kind of exclusive organization of high-class professional artists or a broad association of professionals all the way down to hobbyists. And she (Nancy) said, ‘In a rural environment like Guysborough County, you’ll do much better if you just include everybody.’” They’ve never regretted it.
They tried sales like a Christmas exhibition which gave members a chance to sell their work and those proved successful. But four years ago, Jack said, “We had an invitation from Guysborough Marina to use their boat storage building on the waterfront for the summer.”
That is where they are now and it’s a wonderful venue and it’s full of great art. Many of the 60-some present members sell an incredible variety of art down there.
And it’s professionally run with high school student Suki Kamogawa being the paid, full-time attendant this year. In 2021, Suki, when she was only 13, volunteered to run the summer gallery, which hints at some of the extraordinary people who have made ArtWorks East successful. Last year they sold some $20,000 worth of art. In three months!
Jack said, “It’s taken us four or five years to get a really good, hardworking executive team. It’s amazing to me, their willingness to pick up projects and run with them.”
One of the hardest workers, though, is Jack, himself. Although not an artist, he’s been the driving force behind the group’s success, according to every member we talked to.
Lee Leonard, his wife, a formally trained artist, says of Jack’s skill at steering the group, and at being an ace grant writer: “Before he retired and before he taught at UMass Boston, he was a high school principal and they had to start raising money on their own to support the school. And so he had to do it to keep his job, to keep the school up and running.”
Ethos of Member Over Organization
What makes ArtWorks East’s special is its ethos of member over organization and this is reflected in policies like taking a mere 10 percent of sales, a cut that stuns most artists with gallery experience.
That ethos is also behind their workshop program. Workshops are a proven way for artists to not only share their skills with the wider community and encourage new artists, but also to supplement their income which, for some, means they can keep doing art.
Jack said, “We found out after a couple of years that we could write grants to support workshops and that was a very reliable way of putting money into the pockets of our members.”
They invited any member to teach a workshop. If they didn’t have experience, Jack said, “Sometimes we would pair people up until they learned the ropes and built some confidence.” The group put on over 100 workshops last year.
Then, he said, “We found out about the Canadian Federation of Artists and CARFAC Rates.” The national body sets fair rates artists should be paid which varies somewhat but is over $350 for a half day and now they write it into every grant application they can.
“We do a lot of workshops.” —Moni Duersch
Most of the members we talked to had facilitated workshops. Lois Ann Dort has facilitated workshops for kids on both collage and smart phone photography. Sandy Winter, another founding member, has done several with driftwood.
But Moni Duersch seems to be a powerhouse. She’s done countless workshops in schools and nursing homes, doing things like Crazy Chicken art (you need to see it) and even fingerpainting. She says, “It’s so funny because we’re so trained not to touch anything with our fingers. And then you see them: they try very carefully and then they fully enjoy it. It’s so much fun.”
Community Building
Fun was one of the dominant themes of our visit to the gallery and everyone seemed to be having lots of it, but, Suki said, “I think that having this organization here is a bigger deal than maybe some people think it is.”
The group provides artists an outlet to sell their work, but it is also a context to talk to fellow artists, to learn from one another, to support—and party with—one another. But it’s expanded beyond them. By doing art and encouraging others to do art, Artworks East has forged countless connections and has become vital to the community.
Not only is art being taken into the schools where there are precious few trained art instructors, it is being brought into nursing homes and community halls across the county. Art is finding its way into businesses like Cary Campbell’s Cast Away restaurant because he wants to support local artists. And it will find its way into the Guysborough’s Mulgrave Road Theatre which will feature an ArtWorks East-run gallery. And through art the connections just keep happening.
Cairista MacIsaac, a local jewellery maker and the paid worker for the group who handles, among many other things, their social media spends her days connecting with the community. She said, “I’ve grown up here my whole life. You watch the population dwindle and then something like this (ArtWorks East) comes in and you start to see life being breathed into the area once again.”
But the vision is expanding ever wider. Sue Mitchell, a stained glass artist and the treasurer, believes it’s time to share what it has learned outside their group. “We have four years of experience now that we can share with other organizations that are starting out. Parrsboro has such a success story down there. We’ve reached out to them. I think it’s time again for us to try and be able to give back from what we’ve learned.”
Long Way to Guysborough
It’s a long drive to the village of Guysborough. Along the twisty waterside road are picturesque settlements with stately hardwoods interspersed with tedious stretches of scrubby spruce forest. Guysborough is definitely not within Scrape’s Cape Breton focus but we were compelled to visit the group.
After our Zoom meeting with Jack and Lee we had to see for ourselves if their enthusiasm about the group and its gallery was warranted because for the last three years we have been tracking down artists in Cape Breton ourselves for this magazine. And we have been part of starting a similar group, the Richmond Artists Alliance, here in Richmond, also a sparsely populated and largely ignored county.
What we’ve discovered in these last few years is this: Art is the antidote to isolation. Art improves mental health. Art builds community. And ArtWorks East proves all this and we’ve taken to emulating everything they’re doing because it just works. And it works, we believe, because it starts off with focusing on their members.
Sandra said, “There’s a sense of camaraderie and there’s a sense of unity. So when you have that feeling of not being alone, it gives you more strength and more power and more confidence. And I think we just build that for each other.”
Author details
Elaine Mandrona, in addition to being a writer, is a painter and sculptor. She moved to Cape Breton permanently in 2021.
Author details
Archie Nadon, writer and photographer, left Ontario in 76 dreaming of living by the sea. In 2021 it finally happened.
