The ‘Creative Spaces Garden & Studio Tour’ returns on Saturday, July 8.
“This is a self-guided tour, and once you get your ticket, you can choose what gardens or artist studios you want to visit, in what order, and you can stay as long as you want at each place,” explained Nancy Kendel, a museum board member whose garden will be among those exhibited.
“We have 17 venues this year, 21 participating artists and gardeners,” added Managing Director/Curator Melanie Boyle.
Nancy: “When you drive around Cortes Island, what you see is driveways that go up into the forest. You don’t really get an opportunity to see what other people are doing. Going on the garden tour allowed me to see what other people were doing and the beauty of other people’s spaces because each garden is different and each garden is grown for different reasons, food production or maybe someone’s just into roses.”
CC: Give me some examples of the variety in these gardens
Melanie proceeded to list them:
- “plants for pollinators,
- working with fire smart solutions,
- exploring how to work with straw bales,
- reclaiming older gardens,
- very dry landscapes on the bluffs,
- growing plants that would normally not grow here, like Mediterranean plants, and so forth.”
“This year, in terms of media, we’ve got tapestry, weaving, knitting, assemblage, painting, writing, ceramics, printmaking, and drum making as well.”
“This is a really lovely opportunity to get to know people one-to-one. Maybe you’ve just passed them on the street or in the shop, but you really don’t know in a glimpse of what they’re capable of and what their passions are. It’s a really good way to connect also with their neighbours and the larger community as well as just have a great day out.”
“ Bring some cash with you, because there’ll be items for sale. These artists have worked hard to get their studios ready and some of the gardens may also have vegetables for sale, flowers and so forth. Buy a little memento or a memory of your day here on the island.”
“The museum’s ‘Heritage Garden’ will also be opening up. There’ll be refreshments throughout the day for participants, and some artists will be showing their work there.”
“I think the fantastic thing about the gardens is the process, what people are doing with the landscape that they have, or the environment. On the tour, you’ll see a really great celebration of everybody’s ability to innovate.”
Nancy: “The tour began back in 1998 as our first garden tour, and that was the first year that the museum opened its doors with our first exhibit, which was, ‘Manson’s Lagoon, Year of the Oceans.’ We’ve had a garden tour up until 2010 and then we added artists and artists studios and called it ‘Creative Spaces.’”
“One other interesting year was 2018, where we added a few tiny homes to our tour and that was quite fun because they’re also very creative spaces that people have built lovingly on the island.”
“The Creative Spaces tours are the museum’s major fundraiser every year, and we have done 25 years of these garden and studio tours minus a few years for Covid.”
“It’s pretty important to us and the Cortes Museum Board of Directors is really appreciative of the gardeners and artists who volunteer their time in their spaces to help us with our fundraiser. The fundraiser supports our programming and our archives and our artifact collections.”
CC: Who are the participants?
Melanie: I’m going to read off a list of the participants this year:
- Curious Art Studio (Filipe Figueria)
- Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery (Monica Nawrocki, Ester Strijbos, Janny Thompson)
- Brian Hayden; Gabriel Dinim
- Heritage Garden, the Cortes Island Museum
- Sarah’s Organic ‘Rainbow’ Garden
- Gerri Davis and George Lerchs; Kristen Schofield-Sweet
- Fairhaven Gardens (Laura Ellingsen)
- Nancy and Ray Kendel’s garden
- Juniper Bluffs, (Elizabeth Anderson’s garden)
- Tennant Farm, (Loretta and Don Tennant),
- Sea Field Gardens (Martha Abelson),
- Weaving studio (Marion Cragg)
- Twilight Studio/Thistle Ranch (Jane Newman and Brian Scott).
- Brilliant by the Bay (Connie Brill),
- Bruce Ellingsen’s Garden,
- Nora Johnson and Jerry Prussin’s Garden
- Hollyhock garden.
Melanie: “We’re going to have a little draw, after the main tour, for the participating gardeners and artists who’ve opened up their spaces.”
Prizes for the draw were put forward by:
- Laura Ellingsen for Fairhaven Gardens on Cortes Island
- Holly McKay from Hollyhock on Cortes Island
- Home Depot in Campbell River,
- Campbell River Garden Centre
- Paradise Plants and Garden Centre in Courtenay
- and Garden Works in Courtenay.
This year’s Creative Spaces tour is from 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM on Saturday July 8th.
Nancy: “You can purchase your tickets at stores on the Island and at the museum.”
“If you are on the first ferry, coming over to Cortes on July 8th, drive a little ways up the hill and there’ll be a person with a table, probably some balloons and, a sign saying, ‘Creative Spaces, tickets for sale.’ You can start the tour right there.”
“Ticket prices are $15 and that’s a great bargain because they started at $12 in 1998. So it’s only gone up $3 since then. So it’s $15 a person, and children under 12 are free.”
No pets are allowed on the tour.
Nancy: “We suggest that when you can – carpool, just to have fun with friends and minimize the number of vehicles that have to park.
Melanie: “In addition to carpooling, get on your bike, get on your e-bike and pedal around. I just talked to somebody yesterday who pedaled all the way from the ferry, from Rebecca Spit. Only took them 50 minutes to come here on their e-bike. So it’s doable.”
Nancy: “Please read the directions for parking on the brochure because unless you have mobility concerns, at some places you need to park down on the road and walk up the driveway to the garden because space to turn around at the top is limited.”
“We hope to see you out on that day. Come and enjoy our creative spaces on Cortes.”
The web version of this story was originally published on Sunday, June 11, and republished the following day to align with Cortes Current’s daily radio program.
Top photo credit: Ray and Nancy Kendel’s garden – submitted photo
Sign-up for Cortes Currents email-out:
To receive an emailed catalogue of articles on Cortes Currents, send a (blank) email to subscribe to your desired frequency:
- Daily, (articles posted during the last 24 hours) – cortescurrents-daily+subscribe@cortes.groups.io
- Weekly Digest cortescurrents – cortescurrents-weekly+subscribe@cortes.groups.io