Finding Community in Community Art - Wild Art Walk and Joanne Gervais offer Art Workshop

My name is Sarah Wiseman and I am part of the organizing committee of the Wild Art Walk, an Art Show on a Forest Trail. I am so excited that this year we are offering an art workshop for community members across the region. It is free and is a wonderful opportunity to try something new, or show off your style. Everyone is welcome. All materials are provided. No experience necessary. In this workshop world-renowned artist Joanne Gervais will lead participants in painting one (or more) live edge wood discs, cut from a fallen tree from the Milburn Creek Trail. When the discs are all painted, we will then put them together in one single, mosaic-style piece. An art piece made up of community. Each individual disc will be unique, based on each person’s interest in what they want to paint. The collective art piece will be displayed at the Wild Art Walk on the Milburn Creek Trail for the month of October. We are also looking into options for inside locations where it could be displayed long-term.

I bought a house in Battersea 12 years ago, put my he(art) and soul and carpentry skills into renovating the place. It was my canvas and I had a lot of fun with it. Being the introvert I am, I generally kept to myself and didn’t go out of my way to meet my neighbours in those first years. I worked on my house, walked the trail, wrote poetry (my first love) and was filled up by the beauty in the nature surrounding me. The first year I lived in Battersea I was on a bike ride when I saw signs for the NCC nature reserve property and walked the then less known Milburn Creek Trail for the first time. I was happy to discover such a beautiful, varied landscape open for public walking so close to my house.

Before covid, I had gone to a fibre arts show in the Outaouais region near Ottawa where they had a one-day art show on a nature trail. I was so inspired by the show, I talked about it to my friends for years, dreaming of having something like it near me. In 2023, the year after my father died and my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers, I found new motivation to make the dream of an art walk on a nature trail near me come true. I knew Milburn Creek would be a beautiful place for it so I contacted the NCC who approved the idea. Now I just had to find people who had a similar interest to me. And that meant talking to people.

It was not easy. My introversion fought against it every step of the way. But I did it. I started with talking to the beloved Battersea Pumpkin Fest committee about the idea, and found there were a few people who were really interested. Then I started knocking on doors. Literally. I drove around South Frontenac to houses of people who I heard might be artists, or who had signs on their doors that they were artists, or who had random scrap metal sculptures for sale in their yards, who didn’t call themselves artists but had made something creative sometime for something. I encouraged anyone interested to participate. Finally, after almost 9 years of living where I did, I started to meet my neighbours.

By organizing the Wild Art Walk I threw myself headfirst into the community that I had shied away from for years. And what a wonderful community it is. I am now so grateful to be part of it. Not only was the first Wild Art Walk a successful event with amazing art and an excellent turn-out, it was something that brought community together. By the end of the first year, I had met others with similar interests who lived down the road or out the back way, or down on the lake and who were interested in forming a committee to take on the work involved in doing it again. We are now in our fourth year.

This year we decided to focus on community even more intentionally than we have in other years. We had a vision of an art piece that would be displayed in the Wild Art Walk that was made by anyone and everyone who was interested in participating. With the support of a South Frontenac community grant, we are offering a true community art workshop. A place where community members from across the region (even the introverts), can contribute by making a piece of art, and maybe meeting a neighbour they never knew.

Walk the Wild Art Walk Trail at Milburn Creek Nature Reserve in Battersea. Free anytime between October 1st and 31st