For over 40 years, the Grande Prairie Guild of Artists has been meeting, inspiring, and learning collectively as artists.
The group is made up of artists of varying skill levels and ages, but all are open to learning and sharing their skills.
“We kind of understand each other; not everybody, or even our family, understands us,” said Yvonne Dickson, who is one of the guild’s charter members and is still active with the guild.
“It encourages you to better yourself, to improve your work.”
The guild currently meets once a month in the Centre for Creative Arts, and each meeting includes time for people to drop in and work on their current art pieces. For about an hour, a member may lead the group in a workshop or teach a certain skill or technique, and then members will share a work in progress.
It creates an opportunity for members to discuss each other’s work, get critiques or advice and learn.
“The friendships that we’ve created over the years getting together with like-minded people, it’s nice to feel part of an organization that we can share our creativity,” said Louise Lissoway.
“It forces us to produce items, because sometimes you just get stuck and you don’t have any desire, but once you see other people, it’s inspirational,” she said.
Dickson believes the guild ensured she continued her artistic journey while raising her children.
The time devoted to raising children can make it hard to find time for art, but the guild allowed her that time. Today, with her children grown up, she can still see her art improving as she continues to work on it.
The Beginning
The guild has been active since 1983, following the cancellation of a landscape painting class taught by Robert Guest at Grande Prairie Regional College.
The college’s registrar informed the students that the class would not be returning in the fall, due to “cutbacks.”
“We just kind of knocked the idea around of, well, maybe we should get together on our own,” said Dickson.
The students in the class would then pool their $50 tuition and find a new space to meet and create weekly.
The guild would have its first exhibit at the Booster Building in 1983, as Dickson recalls in her history of the guild in its 40th-anniversary book.
Eventually, the guild would meet at the then Peace Art Gallery, now the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, before moving across the street to the Centre for Creative Arts.
The guild has displayed its work at exhibitions at galleries across the region, including the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, Centre for Creative Arts, Beaverlodge Arts and Culture Centre, Fairview Fine Arts Centre, Dawson Creek Art Gallery, and many more, some of which no longer exist.
The guild has also hosted a variety of workshops for its membership from a wide variety of artists, including Jean Peterson, Janice Robertson, Gregg Johnston, Jim Stokes, Dan Arberry, Carmen Haakstad, Jim Adrain, Bill Adrian, Suzanne Sandboe, Marney Rose Edge, Jack Ried, Peter von Tiesenhausen, and Euphemia McNaught, to name a few.
The guild has also had notable ventures, such as from 2002 to 2004, when it operated Art in the Park out of the old tourist information centre (the cabin south of Centre 2000) and transformed it into a small gallery filled with original works, prints, and postcards, all run by volunteers.
It’s all about volunteers
In fact, the guild has been built on volunteers.
Being a volunteer-run organization is difficult; filling executive roles can be daunting for some, as they have commitments to work, family, and their own creative journey.
“We’re finding a few more younger people are joining our group now; it’s kind of encouraging because most of us are reaching our golden years,” said Lissoway.
Hannah Nott currently serves as the guild’s secretary and has been part of the guild for about four years.
“Being part of the executive has definitely given me some new skills that I’ve built,” said Nott, who said it’s allowed her to learn more about organizing and communicating with other groups.
She found the guild after moving to Grande Prairie, not knowing about the city’s creative community; meeting with the group has helped her own creative journey.
“Creativity does not thrive in isolation,” she said.
“Creativity really thrives when you’re in a community, and you’re bouncing ideas.
“For myself, it’s bouncing the ideas off people, having a sounding board, and because other people will have different perspectives and different ideas from their life experiences.”
The guild has become part of her creative life as an artist.
“It’ll be interesting to see where the direction of the guild goes and how we can incorporate more people into it and keep it going because it is a legacy in Grande Prairie and so we definitely don’t want to lose that piece of history,” said Nott.
Beyond the creative group, the guild has brought together its members to create unique works that tell the story of the Peace Region.
As a passage from the guild’s 30th Anniversary book reads, “Collectively, our art is a reflection of our experiences in Grande Prairie, in the Peace, on our travels, and as a group that for 30 years has encouraged individual expression and painting.”
That same message resonates now.
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