Grab your paintbrushes and your favourite art aficionado, and start planning your route so you can be sure to discover all the incredible local artists and their beautiful works of art on the 2023 South Rock Art Tour. On the weekend of September 23 and 24, 32 artists living and/or working in White Rock, Ocean Park, Crescent Beach and South Surrey will be participating in a two-day, self-guided tour designed to expose visitors to the thriving arts community found on the Semiahmoo Peninsula. The tour will include 19 separate locations that will be open between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on both days.
Artist credit: Carla Maskall, Kathy Forbes and Nicole Carrie
The event is simple: round up your friends and fellow art lovers and using the provided map visit the different studios and showrooms where artists will be showing their work. Not only will you see stunning paintings, prints, sculptures, glasswork, ceramics, mosaic and turned wood pieces, but you can also meet the artists behind your favourite pieces and, if you’re feeling inspired, maybe take a piece or two home with you, as many of the works will be for sale.
The following artists will be presenting demonstrations of their art form during the weekend:
Armida Ortega (paper art)
Bruce Kleeberger (sculpture process)
Eileen Fong (Chinese brush painting)
Laurie Thomasson (watercolour cards)
Sanjoy Das (how sound is made visible)
Sherrin Kovach (stages of the sgraffito process with ceramics)
Tammy Bailey (watercolour cards)
Tiffany Scott (hand-crafted beaded jewellery)
Artist credit: Lori Chalmers, Jon Lavoie and Lisa Samphire
And, a few additional highlights of the weekend include:
- Adele Samphire will be displaying ceramic pieces by the late Sid Samphire (2022 Tour artisan).
- Carla Maskall will reveal a large painting of the White Rock Pier and have her books for sale.
- Constance Glover has embarked on an exciting series of garden sculptures. They are stacking pieces ranging in height from 2-foot garden lanterns to a 5-foot piece in 3 sections.
- Kathy Forbes has 3D miniatures in 1:12 scale. She makes furniture, plants, food, and decor to make scenes in cubes. Some will be made in shadow boxes so they can hang on the wall.
- Jon Lavoie will be available to explain his photography techniques on how to capture the bright sun or moon as well as how to use the camera’s manual mode to get the best results (rather than auto).
- Lisa Samphire has a new batch of blown glass garden stakes in new colour combos.
- Mary Goldthorp creates custom tribute artwork using all paper memories collected over the years. Paper memories can be artwork from your children, weddings, births, “life in general”, travel experiences or anything else folks save in paper form.
Visit the South Rock Art Tour website for more information, to check out the map of studio locations, and to get acquainted with the participating artists.
Saturday & Sunday
September 23 & 24, 2023
10 am – 4 pm
The South Rock Art Tour is presented by Arts of Course, in partnership with the Semiahmoo Arts Society – and sponsored by CIBC Yarmoshuk Reedman Huehn Financial Group, The City of White Rock and Nautilus 1500 Oxford