The art of the renaissance

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Seven-year-old Felleon Villedo shows off her bead work at Art City.

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Korrdel Christian, 12, works on bead work.

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At left, three-year-old Evan Prandow works on beads with artist Karen Taylor.

When you walk into the small storefront space in West Broadway that houses Art City community centre, it becomes immediately clear it is far from your average art program.

Instead of making drawings from construction paper and crayons, a group of energetic kids and local artists just finished creating a time machine out of wooden planks, old mirrors, magnifying glasses and whatever other odds and ends they could get their hands on.

The machine is part of a workshop run by guest artists Ryan Klatt and Laura Magnusson. Though the machine may only be able to take you back as far as your imagination will let you, everyone in the centre -- kids and adults alike -- darts in and out of the structure as if it could transport them through time at the push of a button.

The interior of the machine is built to resemble an underwater world -- what Winnipeg would have looked like 100 million years ago, Magnusson said.

During their week-long workshop, Magnusson, said she was really impressed by how everyone at the centre was able to work together as a team, with dozens of participants coming to Art City to pitch in on a daily basis.

"The whole community really gets behind a project and each person has their own contribution and role. In the end, what would take one artist working independently maybe three months to do, in four days we have a functioning time-warp machine."

This overwhelming sense of imagination and creativity permeates almost everything that happens at Art City, a non-profit centre at 616 Broadway that brings professional artists, local youth and other community members together to provide quality arts programming.

The centre runs on a drop-in basis, is open to all ages, and is completely free for participants in order to make their programs as accessible as possible, explained Josh Ruth, managing director for Art City.

The majority of participants come from the West Broadway area, but the centre also welcomes youth from all over the city.

"People come from all over and all different ages, so there's really unique opportunities for mentorship. And often the mentorship doesn't just happen from adult to kids but the other way around, because kids when they approach art and self expression, they don't have a lot of the same inhibitions that adults have," he said.

"It's a really interesting exchange. There's no agenda here, there's no pretense here other than providing a space for people to be together and encourage self-expression."

Art City took possession of its storefront location in 1998, but is the result of years of effort from world-renowned artist Wanda Koop to transform the West Broadway community through art.

After observing the neighbourhood's decline in the early '90s, Koop and a group of dedicated residents "got together and very strategically started to work with the transformation of West Broadway," she explained.

Part of this transformation was putting together a variety of public art projects, including paintings on the boarded-up windows of empty houses.

"We thought it would be best to give evidence to the internal change that was happening in the neighbourhood," she said.

But the idea for the Art City community centre came after Koop took part in a panel discussion at the University of Winnipeg, where panelists were asked what they would like to do in terms of public art if given the funding to do so.

"I'd thought about it for a long time, and I said, 'Wouldn't it be great if every community had, along with a hockey rink and soccer fields, an art centre... to bring in professional artists and the community together. A kind of art city,' " Koop said.

"At that time I was exhausted, and thought it was a pipe dream... but I knew in my heart of hearts it was the right thing to do. I knew it could be the solution."

The goal of Art City, Koop explained, is not necessarily to make artists, but to foster creative thinking in its participants and encourage them to develop creative solutions in their own lives.

"If you can think creatively, you can survive anything," she said.

More than 20 years after Koop began her grassroots efforts to regenerate West Broadway, the centre now takes applications from professional artists across Canada, the United States and Europe for their workshop series. Each artist is paid according to CARFAC Union standards.

"There's a lot of artists programs that expect artists to work for free or for very little... and we're really devoted to treating artists well and with respect," she said.

Ben Clarkson, a visual artist based in Winnipeg, said he started volunteering for Art City last October after being accepted for a guest artist position at the centre.

"And I was like... this is the greatest place on the planet, and will never stop volunteering there," he said.

During his time at the centre, Clarkson said he's reaped the benefits Art City provides for the local artistic community, such as employment and networking opportunities, but has also been struck by its transformative effect on the community of West Broadway.

"(The staff) know every kid in the neighbourhood, and they have a relationship with every kid in the neighbourhood," he said.

"It provides a reliable and caring community for a lot of these kids. Because a lot of them don't have a place to go after school; they just go lurk around the neighbourhood."

Koop echoed Clarkson's comments, remarking that she, too, has been amazed at the level of impact the centre has been able to make on the West Broadway community and beyond.

"I think that it went from being like the Heart of Darkness to a re-energized community. I wouldn't say that Art City is the only reason for all of that happening, but it has definitely been a beacon," she said.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 29, 2012 A6