Pender Island arts group adds literary festival to its offerings
A Pender Island arts organization started by a resident with a love of music and the arts plans to add a literary festival to its growing repertoire of programming in the spring of 2025.
Ptarmigan Arts Society delivers arts programs, workshops and events on the southern Gulf Islands and in Greater Victoria.
Started by Patrick Smith in 1991, the organization “stayed very small for a very long time,” said Lisa Fleming, executive director for the organization for eight years.
Over the last decade, Ptarmigan focused on community building through the arts, with programming in areas such as music, theatre, film-making, dance and visual arts.
The Short Film Festival was added six years ago, and Mosaic, its August long weekend arts and culture festival, began in 2019.
The as-yet-unnamed literary arts festival is expected in the spring of 2025.
“We want to appeal to the broadest audience as possible — from seniors to preschoolers — with programs offered in community centres and other venues,” said Fleming.
Ptarmigan’s diverse offerings range from ukulele lessons to live music performances by local and visiting musicians and community singalongs for individuals living in shelters.
“At one of those singalongs, one of the residents came up to me. He told me that while he was grateful for the generosity that was shown to him by the shelter for his physical needs, the singalong touched him at a different level,” said Fleming. “Performing arts serves to enhance a person’s quality of life.”
The organization hosts weekly lunchtime gigs with free live music by local musicians at Pender Island Community Hall.
Ptarmigan Arts also travels to Victoria, partnering with local organizations to offer tailored Community Soul Singalongs for community groups and in residences for older adults with memory and cognitive issues.
The group also offers art education to more than 190 children in partnership with Pender Island School in class, after school and in summer camps, and provides arts programs to schools on Mayne, Galiano and Saturna islands, as well as the tribal school.
While there are attendance or drop-in fees for some of the programs, Ptarmigan Arts offers subsidies and financial assistance whenever possible to ensure there is a low or no barrier for inclusion.
Fleming said the group is able to offer low-cost or free programs thanks to funding by all three levels of government as well as the Victoria Foundation’s Community Grants Program.
“We are fortunate that we have a funding stream that is both diversified and resilient,” she said.