Cortes Island’s most economically challenged residents appear to be facing another bleak winter this year.
Filipe Figueira, Coordinator of the Cortes Island Food Bank, explained, “We’ve definitely seen a huge rise in general economic distress over the last couple of years. I think that covers two key areas. One is food insecurity, the other one is housing insecurity, which feeds into economic insecurity as well.”
Continue reading Rising Food and Housing Insecurity on Cortes Island
‘Painting With Eyes Closed,’ an exhibition by Filipe Figueira opens at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Friday June 21st, 6-9pm.
“You always have to come up with the title for shows. Usually they’re sort of pretentious and arty, but there’s a reason for this one. It alludes to the process. I’m inspired by scenes on Cortes. I’ll go somewhere, sketch and I’ll get inspired, but a lot of my ideas come just when I’m at the point of falling asleep. The painting will come into my head. Sometimes really detailed thoughts, like the paints to use, the techniques, the layout and even very specific paints and paint mixes pop into my head. Often I have to get up and sketch. Sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I’ll be thinking about the painting and that becomes the basis of the paintings. They are scenes from Cortes, but they’re mediated through this process,” he explained.
Continue reading Painting With Eyes Closed: The Artwork of Filipe FigueiraThe Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour is Saturday June 22, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is an annual fundraiser for the Cortes Island Museum, as well as a showcase of some of the island’s hidden gems.
“It’s a great opportunity to feature creative talents of people on the island, and it’s a self guided tour of studios and gardens that takes you all the way around from Whaletown, down to Smelt Bay, and Cortes Bay. We’ve got painters, textile artists, weavers, spinners, ceramicists . We’ve got a number of potters and pottery studios that are participating. And then some beautiful spaces with gardens that range from low bluff to high bluff. You pick up a map, which includes a button, and you just go around the island visiting people with talents you may not have known about, or see spaces that you were curious about but never had an opportunity to actually walk into. Walk through the gates and see what people are growing there,” explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum.
Continue reading The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island
On April 5th, Max Thaysen, Sara Stewart, and Filipe Figueira joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie for a FolkU Friday group discussion on food security and food systems. They chat about successes and challenges in food systems, both locally and globally, from the perspective of farmers, food thinkers, and one of the main coordinators of the Cortes Food Bank.
Continue reading Folk U: Food Security from the Perspective of Farmers, Food Thinkers, and the Cortes Food Bank Coordinator
The Cortes Island Food Bank has met the rapidly expanding need for its services, but says it is time the local, provincial and federal governments stepped up to the plate. Only 110 food hampers were given out in 2022, but since August they have seen at least a threefold increase of demand every month. There were 86 clients in January and 70 in February. Prior to this, the highs for both months was 12.
“We really knew that the numbers that we were seeing in previous years were not reflecting the level of poverty that exists here. So we were doing some strategic things to try to increase people’s awareness of the food bank. That was a major reason why our numbers went up so significantly. People felt that they could come to us. They knew it was a safe place to come for support. I think our clients are already dealing with so many challenges in their lives. I encourage anybody listening, if you could use some help, just come to us and we’ll get you some food,” explained Beatrix Baxter, one of the Food Bank’s Directors.
Continue reading The Cortes Food Bank at a Critical Crossroad
