Artists for the Rockies Online Auction deeply personal for those involved
April 23 was a good day for the Livingstone Landowners Group and those opposed to open pit mining especially to all the activity which has been occurring in the Eastern Slopes in southwest Alberta.
In a news conference Energy Minister Sonya Savage officially “paused coal exploration in Category 2 areas… and whole the move is positive but the critical work of preventing all future coal development in the Eastern Slopes still remains.”
Normal Dougall, Vice President of the Livingstone Landowners Group says they are receiving a lot of support and now there is very popular fundraiser which will be in full flight this week.
The Artists for the Rockies Online Auction goes from May 6-16. 100 per cent of the proceeds go to the Livingstone Landowners Group and their efforts to defend against the open put coal mining as well as related research.
“The wanted to help and felt passionate about this cause,” explains Dougall. “The art that is part of the auction shows that a lot of them have either lived or spent time in this area and it reflects as the art is specific to the areas that are at risk if the coal mines go through.”
Dougall says it was a few artists who approached them about wanting to help raise money for the group by donating work. Dougall says that they were grateful and flattered with the offer but the volunteer group itself were taxed to the limit with their legal, political, educational and research efforts in the coal opposition. She says that the artists themselves took it a stage further and told Dougall they would figure it out on their own. Dougall knew of two separate groups of artists who had offered to help and then acted as a facilitator and connected the two sides and connected them from there. The one group was led by Trish Hoskin, an artist from For Macleod and the other was Wes Olson who is based in Edmonton.
Describing herself as crochet pattern designer, Hoskin was amongst many residents who are concerned about the Eastern Slopes. She wanted to get involved and the original plan for Hoskin and another Fort Macleod artist to raise money for a local family who was taking the government to court about the Eastern Slopes situation.
“We decided to pool our resources and ideas together and that’s how our group came together. The two of us in Fort Macleod had never met the group we are working with, never met those other people,” explains Hoskin. “It’s neat, we are all across the province Wes and (his wife) Johane are up in Edmonton. It is kinda cool actually. When we got together, in our first meeting we got to know each other to find out what our goals were and we decided we wouldn’t raise funds funds for the family in the courts with the province. We decided to instead that it would be good to raise funds for the Livingstone Landowners Group and for the work they are doing just because the family has received a lot of support already and the LLG is doing some important background work and research. Doing surveys for the public and doing some things that are very important to the cause. It wasn’t hard at all to decide to support them. Everyone had the same idea to have this art auction so that took a little of time to figure out how we were going to do it.”
Artist Wes Olson, who along with his spouse Johane Janelle, were also key organizers for the Art Auction. He
gives a lot of credit to Dougall and Hoskin for making the process easy for a group that had never organized something of this nature before.
Olson had directly approached the Livingstone Landowners in early February, with three of his pieces as a way to raise money for their group, unbeknownst of the similar offer by Hoskin in Fort Macleod. He said from that initial discussion with Dougall, things started to take off.
“She coordinated getting together everyone and it evolved from that initial meeting into a full-blown Artists for the Rockies fundraising event. It quickly morphed into something larger,” said Olson who noted there are currently five on the committee and all of them except his wife, had never met.
Olson wasn’t aware of any artists from his end that had donated and said within a short period of time they had 24 pieces including a bison head etching from famous artist Robert Bateman, 93” x77” cotton quilt courtesy Marie Lingwood and 16”x20” oil painting from Neil Jones, another well known wildlife artist. In the case of Bateman, his assistant saw the call for interest and he wanted to get involved. Olson himself contributed the gorgeous Bighorn Sheep Cutting Board.
“It kinda snowballed fairly quickly,” Olson says about finding the pieces for the event. Each of the two groups found the pieces for the event and it only took a few weeks. “It is a testament to the value the artists place on the pristine Foothills and mountains. These people are passionate about wildlife and those places. They quickly stepped up to the plate. Since we stopped soliciting for art, I now have nine offers for auctions for done the road. I am still getting one or two offers a day now.”
For the past many years, Hoskin has focused on crocheting, toys and design patterns for the toys. Her contribution to the online auction is the very well done “Save the Rockies Crochet Frog Cushion.” She thought the frog was going to fit for the environmental theme for the sale. She is grateful and impressed with the diversity of the works. The issue was not so much in trying to find quality but now is quantity, as in too much, obvious a good problem to have”
“There were a lot of people who really willing to donate art, but we wanted to make sure we kept it manageable. We wanted to keep it small,” explains Hoskin. “We sent personal invitations to artists we know. We got
some great donations, some beautiful pieces. So what has happened is that more artists have been in touch. So if this auction is a success we can arrange another one for the fall.”
Hoskin grew up in Calgary. She says spent a lot of time in the mountains as a child and has an affinity for the outdoors. What she sees happening is quite upsetting.
“I don’t know how to explain it without getting emotional,” explains Hoskin. “I found it shocking what’s happened and how it has happened. The history of how it started and when it started and just the mess that it is now. I know a little bit now of the Oldman
Watershed and seeing the results of the mining killing all of those fish really messing with their spawning grounds and the impact that will have on the wildlife downstream is really disturbing.”
As was the case for Hoskin, this Eastern Slopes cause is deeply personal for Olson who says his approximately 60 years has been tied to the area. He and his family have been associated with the Eastern Slopes since the 1920s. His grandfather had a sawmill east of Sheep River west of Turner Valley and his father was born and raised there. Olson himself grew up in Back Diamond and “virtually 100 per cent of his family’s recreation time was spent in the Eastern Slopes, from the Crowsnest Pass to the Elbow.” After high school, he worked for the provincial forest service.
“The land scape is in my soul and blood,” explains Olson. I just finished a 32-year career with Parks Canada as a park warden, so I have a lifelong desire to protect wild places and wild species and to see it threatened with this open pit coal (mining) development is just sickening.”
The online auction and subsequent information including the items up for sale can be found at https:// www.32auctions.com/LLG Bidding ends May 16 at 4 p.m.