The Nelson and District Arts Council is presenting the 32nd annual ArtWalk, which will be an event to remember with over 40 artists and 20-plus businesses onboard.
“We are hosting an opening night live streaming event on Friday from 6 to 9 p.m., which will be free and open to everyone,” said co-ordinator Stephanie Myers in a release.
The Arts Council will be hosting the event via Zoom as well as on Facebook live.
The event will feature Melody Diachun and Doug Stevenson (taking jazz requests), The Dancing Legs, Onezie Parade and dose. All this will be hosted by Lucas Myers.
“All performers will be coming to you from their living rooms or an otherwise safe location,” Stephanie Myers said. “Providing ArtWalk in this capacity allows for local performance artists to continue to be paid for their work in a climate where almost all summer performance opportunities have been cancelled.”
The Nelson and District Arts Council has worked to be proactive during the COVID-19 health crisis and has developed a way to support the visual arts community while keeping everyone safe.
A digital gallery platform will be open for viewing all the individual artist’s art on the NDAC website.
The arts council has also kept the tradition of collaborating with the local business community, with businesses promoting specific artists on their social media accounts in lieu of physically being able to hang artwork in their establishments.
All links will connect to the ArtWalk gallery where patrons can directly connect with the artists to make their artwork purchases.
Another change for this year: 100 per cent of art sales will go directly to the artists. The arts community has been drastically affected during this time and the Arts Council wants to provide as much support as possible.
“ArtWalk has a wonderful reputation as one of the best events of the summer,” Stephanie Myers said. “It might look different but will still focus directly on showcasing our local performance and visual artists.”