Leighton Centre looks to future
$7M revival of artistic hub
When Barbara Leighton officially opened her beloved country home to the public in 1974, the widow of celebrated Alberta landscape painter A.C. Leighton had a grand vision.
The Leighton Art Centre, located 45 minutes south of Calgary, was meant to be a place that fostered all forms of art, from painting to the performing arts, through exhibitions and educational programs.
Back then, says the centre’s new executive direc- tor, Tony Luppino, artists of all stripes gravitated to the property to paint, sculpt, weave, play music, put on plays and discuss art philosophy.
Barbara, who Luppino describes as “an odd combination of strawberry tea British woman on a Sunday afternoon and some kind of hippy doing batika” was particularly passionate about bringing art appreciation to the wives of neighbouring ranchers and she spoke often of “unleashing the artist in everyone.”
“She’s like Alberta’s Gertrude Stein,” Luppino says. “She must have been a very cool woman.”
But over the years, certainly since Barbara died in 1986, that idealistic vision for the Leighton Art Centre was lost.
Today, the centre is primarily known — and perhaps unfairly pigeonholed — as a heritage site where the works of A.C. and his traditionalist landscape painting contemporaries can be viewed.
And of course, there’s the ever-popular school tours with children bused in daily — about 11,000 a year — to take part in the arts-and-crafts programs put on in Ballyhamage, the one-room schoolhouse from 1919 that sits on the 34 hectares of Leighton land.
It’s all very charming, but it’s also a far cry from the lush, vital garden of the arts that Barbara dreamed it would be.
Over the next five years, though, that’s going to change.
Plans are underway for an ambitious $7-million revival of the Leighton Art Centre that will include the construction of a new 12,200 square foot facility, which will encompass the centre’s exhibitions, galleries, classes, lectures and performances.
The old Leighton residence and schoolhouse will be treated as the heritage homes they are, refurbished and opened for public tours on a reduced basis.
As for the centre’s reputation as a quaint stop dedicated to oldfashioned landscape painting and arts and crafts for kids, it’s Luppino’s mission to broaden the horizon.
He talks of a place where contemporary talents, from digital and graffiti artists to those of an experimental ilk, would coexist with traditionalists sharing ideas and inspiring one another and the public through the centre’s programs.
He also hopes to bring performance art by the likes of One Yellow Rabbit to the facility’s gorgeous rural setting.
In the spirit of changes to come, Calgary artist Peter von Tiesenhausen will be doing a massive, environmentally based outdoor installation on the Leighton land this summer.
“I think something happened where we forgot about the original spirit of this place,” Luppino says. “We’ve tended to replicate what the Leightons did. Barbara did weaving and jewelry making, so let’s teach that. A.C. was the great landscape painter so let’s do that. . . . And I think people thought it was just a bunch of Sunday painters out here.”
Daniel Doz, president of the Alberta College of Art and Design — who’s been in talks with Luppino about establishing an ACAD scholarship through the centre — agrees.
“It’s a little gem that we don’t capitalize on enough as a city,” Doz says. “It was a house that grew into this little art centre and they haven’t really focused on the property and on creating this sustainable model.
The current setup is OK “when you’re bringing in 50 people on the weekend, but when you’re looking to bring in 500 people, they’re challenged . . . I think the (new facility) they’re looking at building is a necessity.”
The Leighton home, which was built in the 1950s, lacks the gallery and storage space needed for any sort of substantial expansion and significant renovations are needed for its upkeep.
The lighting is inadequate for a public gallery and it lacks the humidity controls needed to properly preserve the historical works on exhibit.
Luppino says plans are underway to raise the projected $7 million for the renewal of the Leighton Art Centre through corporate sponsors and private donors who have already come to the table and he’s working to solicit further support.
Luppino stresses that these plans for the centre will not entail doing away with programs the place is known for. Rather, it’s a matter of stepping up the institution’s game.
“We don’t want people thinking we’re no longer about landscape art,” he says. “But we’re not only about landscape art. . . . We want to bring a whole new audience out here.”
To that end, the Leighton Art Centre seeks to create a “21st-century expression” of Barbara’s vision.
“Barbara had absolute faith in the ability of everyone to be creative. . . . She believed that if you want to learn to be creative, you hang around with creative people, and that’s what we want. We want to be an artistic centre where people can gather and participate.
“She had an innate understanding about how that could enhance people’s lives in a really important way.”