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Take part in Trash Art

When the Arts Council talks trash, they’re not thinking Jersey Shore.

When the Arts Council talks trash, they’re not thinking Jersey Shore.

They’re focusing on fine art, as in the group’s annual Trash Art Challenge.

Following years of amazingly diverse creations with themes such as function and masks, this year the subject is ‘musical.'

“This area is full of musicians and we wanted to engage their participation,” says Lori Kenney, an Arts Council member who founded the TAC and has participated every year. “The Arts Council is about all the arts, so opening up the challenge to include another art discipline should stimulate even more people to participate.”

The entry criteria are not exactly strict.

“We want to leave it as open to the imagination as possible, but entries to this main category should be able to create sounds that someone, somewhere might consider music,” said Dallas Stevenson, executive director at the Comox Valley Community Arts Council. “As visual art is in the eye of the beholder, music too is open to interpretation.”

A second category, with lesser prizes, allows for even more open expression — any sort of art from any sort of trash. And there are categories for youth (18 years and under).

Deadline for entries is April 3 and the show is to run April 5 to 28 in CVCAC’s Muir Gallery on Anderton Avenue next to the Fifth Street Bridge in Courtenay. The show opening is set for April 5, the day before the Easter long weekend.

"Creative-mind gears are already whirring,” said CVCAC president Jamie Bowman. “I expect this will top even other years, when I have been amazed by the absolute genius of submissions.

“This is a chance to make a statement, through art, about the masses of trash our society creates and to be inspiring in dealing with it creatively.”

In Trash Art, artists “innovate, embellish, assemble, reuse, re-invent, salvage and or construct objects for the home environment with recycled materials,” said Kenney.

The idea is to repurpose discarded items and make them into something beautiful and meaningful, ranging from cute to strange to whimsical to unusual. All submissions must be constructed from materials recycled from a previous use.

Although a fundraiser for the Muir Gallery, There are a variety of prizes available to be won for categories, including

Best Use of Materials, Best General Trash Art Entry Musicality and Best Functioning Piece.

Trash Art fits well with the Arts Council’s mandate to “facilitate and animate the arts in the Comox Valley … promoting the Comox Valley as a creative and dynamic arts-producing centre."

Forms and more details are at www.comoxvalleyarts.org. To make alternate arrangements for drop off, contact CVCAC at 250-334 2983 or at info@comoxvalleyarts.org. Out-of-town submissions will be received anytime before the April 3 deadline by mail, courier, etc.

The works will be for sale at the gallery.

— Comox Valley Community Arts Council