Tag Archives: Melanie Boyle

Arts, Gardening

The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island

The 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 →
Arts, Community

Museum Hosts Valentine’s Day Event: Love Letters

The Cortes Museum and Archives is collaborating with Folk U to offer two events in honour of Valentine’s Day, on the theme of Love Letters. On February 11th (Sunday) from 1-4pm, Jane Newman will host a “love letter writing workshop” featuring both writing and collage art. On February 14th from 7 to 8:30pm, Oriane Lee will host an evening of love letter readings, including some from the Museum archives. Both events are free, though donations are always welcome. People interested in participating in the readings on the 14th should contact jemma@folku.ca.

Roy Hales interviewed Melanie Boyle (the Museum’s Director) and Jemma Hicken (the event organiser) about their collaboration to offer the community a new Valentine’s Day event.

Continue reading Museum Hosts Valentine’s Day Event: Love Letters →
Arts

Folk U: Arts on Cortes

On January 26, Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by artists and organizers Bianca Lee (Old Schoolhouse Art gallery), Melanie Boyle (Cortes Island Museum), Rex Weyler (Love Fest + coffeehouses), and Meinsje (Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery). This was a lovely conversation about personal practice, the role of arts and culture in remote communities, the importance of everyday art, and upcoming events + opportunities for greater collaboration.

Continue reading Folk U: Arts on Cortes →
Community, Family

A Vintage Christmas at the Museum

 “There’s never a dull moment in Whaletown,  but during December, things seem to have reached a ‘crescendo fortissimo compassioné,’ and I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. The first week began reasonably enough with two residents in Vancouver and Victoria hospitals for mental treatment. A cat named Jill was run over by a bulldozer, a couple of private parties, and the start of another feud.” – Gilean Douglas’ 1953 Christmas letter.  

A collection of Douglas’ letters and her gilded Edwardian postcards will be part of the open house. 

“People are welcome to come, find a spot,  get a letter and read through it. See what was happening on Cortes Island back in the day,” explained Melanie Boyle Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum.  

“This Saturday,  December 9th, between 11 AM until 4 PM, the Museum is running what we call Vintage Christmas. We thought it would be wonderful to offer another community space while the shoppers are down in Manson’s for the Holiday Fair.”

Continue reading A Vintage Christmas at the Museum →
Arts

25th Anniversary Celebration of Marnie’s Books

Recording and initial transcript by Bill Weaver, but very much a collaboration in which Darshan Stevens photography and Cortes Currents all participated.

On the evening of Friday August 20, 2023, in the Cortes Co-Op Courtyard, 155 people arrived with their folding chairs to attend a 25th Anniversary Celebration for Marnie’s Books.  First Marnie gave a history of her book selling, and the origins of the Courtyard. Then Shaena Lambert, Rex Weyler, Priya Huffman, Norm Gibbons, Ruth Ozeki, and Erin Robinsong read from their writings. For two hours these wonderful presenters held this large crowd spellbound. This event was co-Sponsored  by the Cortes Island Museum and Archives Society.

The following transcript begins with an introduction by Melanie Boyle, from the Cortes Island Museum.

Continue reading 25th Anniversary Celebration of Marnie’s Books →