The Pollinizing Sessions: A Series of Free Talks and Workshops to Learn about Pollinators in our Community

Tuesday, November 24th 2015, 7 – 8:30 PM
Downtown Kelowna Branch, Okanagan Regional Library
1380 Ellis St, Kelowna
Free admission, All welcome

Join Nancy Holmes of the Public Art Pollinator Pasture Project at UBC Okanagan to learn more about Kelowna’s Public Art Pollinator Pasture at the Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage Park.

This evening will launch a series of talks and workshops, The Pollinizing Sessions, which will begin in January 2016. “The Pollinizing Sessions” will consist of talks and workshops by experts who will help the community learn more about important species such as bumble bees and other native bees and insects, about which plants can best support them, and ways to build habitat for them. A special feature on November 24th will be from the Central Okanagan Heritage Society which will provide information about the Brent’s Grist Mill heritage values.

Please come if you are interested in volunteering for planting and site preparation, making art, making insect habitats, or participating in citizen science pollinator census projects next spring. You’re also welcome if you just want to learn more about the Brent’s Grist Mill, the park site, native bees, native and xeriscape planting, and making habitat for pollinators in your own backyard. Or maybe you’re just curious about the project!

The series is sponsored by the Okanagan Regional Library and The Public Art Pollinator Pasture Project and The Eco Art Incubator in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC Okanagan. The Public Art Pollinator Pasture is a project created through a partnership between UBC, The City of Kelowna, The City of Richmond and Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

For more information, contact Nancy Holmes at nancy.holmes@ubc.ca

Website: borderfreebees.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pollinatorpasture/?fref=ts

Bee Central: UBC’s “Culture Days” Activity

What: Mason Bee Homes, free family community art event
Who: Eco Artist Lori Mairs
When: Saturday, September 26, 11 am – 3 pm
Where: Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage Park, Kelowna

UBC will have a presence in Kelowna at this year’s national Culture Days celebrations with the community art project, Bee Central. Artist Lori Mairs will be leading a series of fun, family projects to create homes for mason bees for people’s backyards this upcoming spring. Mason Bee Homes is the fourth community art event sponsored by Bee Central and it takes place Saturday, September 26 from 11 am to 3 pm. Admission is free and people can drop in at any time.

Lori Mairs

Mairs will help participants make their own home and children will be invited to create bee finger puppets. She will also display a mason bee tube sculpture to show mason bee development and the community can participate in creating a pollinator hotel to be installed on the site of a pollinator pasture next spring. Bee Central is a Community Art Project sponsored by UBC Okanagan and the City of Kelowna and takes place at the historic Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage Park at the corner of Dilworth Rd and Leckie Place. This event is being held in conjunction with the Central Okanagan Heritage Society who will provide information about the Grist Mill and Culture Days in Kelowna.

Lori Mairs is an ecological artist-researcher who lives in a companion-species relationship with the 22 acres that is the Woodhaven Nature Conservancy. Mairs is a sculptor, writer, and photographer, and she has an MFA degree in Visual Arts from UBC Okanagan.

Bee Central is part of a larger plan to introduce and stimulate a ‘buzz’ about bees and the Brent’s Grist Mill Heritage Park, particularly to attract a diverse community to help with the planting, building and maintaining of a Public Art Pollinator Pasture in Kelowna, explains UBC Assoc. Prof. Nancy Holmes. Bee Central is made possible by a Community Public Art Grant from the City of Kelowna and UBC’s Eco Art Incubator.

Culture Days is a national celebration organized by “a non-profit organization dedicated to building a national network of cultural connections devoted to providing Canadians with opportunities to participate in, and appreciate, all forms of arts and culture. Through an annual three-day national celebration each September, hundreds of thousands of artists and cultural organizations in hundreds of cities and towns come together and invite Canadians to participate in free interactive and ‘behind the scenes’ activities to discover their cultural spirit and passion.” culturedays.ca/en/about-culture-days.

For more information about UBC Okanagan Eco Art Incubator projects or to become a volunteer, please contact Holmes at nancy.holmes@ubc.ca, 250-764-9666. More information can be found at: blogs.ubc.ca/theecoartincubator/ .

Draw by Night is back!

What: Kelowna’s only bi-monthly drawing party
When: Friday, Sept. 25,  7-9 p.m.
Where: Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, 103-421 Cawston Avenue

Now in it’s 2nd year, Draw By Night: Kelowna is a collaborative drawing party, free to the public, which asks its participants to collectively and freely draw in a social setting on large rolls of paper. The objective is to be surrounded by like-minded creative individuals, listen and converse visually through drawing or be inspired by others to produce something individually. This bi-monthly event, organized by Visual Arts professor, Myron Campbell has been happening for the last year and a half.

“I started this event to create a comfortable, pressure-free space to draw in an effort to remove inhibitions while drawing while also mixing faculty, students, industry and the general public.” says Campbell. “So far we’ve had parties at the Kelowna Art Gallery, the Alternator Centre and the Kelowna Museums. The response has been pretty great. We were featured on Global TV last year and we have an upcoming event during Culture Days at the end of the month.”

The aim is to engage creative people from various disciplines throughout the community including students, industry professionals, visual artists, hobbyists and the general public and get them all drawing!

Inspired by the work by Ann Nicholson, the next theme celebrates our own inner warriors. The voices in our heads that guide us through good and bad times. As part of Kelowna’s Culture Days, DBNers will get together and create character Artist Trading Cards to share and trade.

This event is free + open to the public! Come armed with your favourite drawing utensil or just bring your bad self and you can use our stuff. We will provide materials and food for your inspiration. Come draw with us!

Stay up to date on DBN events on our facebook page.