The
Halls Island Artist Residency Committee is thrilled that the new and
innovative program in Haliburton County is up and running. 

The
first artist to stay at Halls Island Artist Residency, Ryan
Kasperowitsch, completed his stay in late June. On June 27,
Kasperowitsch presented his thoughts on outdoor education and
experiences as they relate to watercolour painting. He is an avid
outdoorsman and also a doctoral student at Brock University. A large
group of summer staff were present for his session at YMCA Camp
Wanakita. The young audience had many very thought provoking and
relevant contributions to the open discussion following his talk.
Kasperowitsch also generously donated a framed watercolour painting to
Camp Wanakita’s fundraising auction which helps send kids to camp. 

Brooke
Manning, the second artist benefiting from this new program, will be
creating a community poem as her community engagement piece. There are
journals located at five Haliburton County Public Library branches and
one at Fleming College. Anyone who happens upon a journal is encouraged
to enter thoughts, ideas, musings or whatever they feel at the time,
into the journals. The books will be relocated to new settings for the
month of August.  At the end of the summer, Brooke will use these
entries to create a community poem. Organizers are already anticipating
something new and exciting as her end result.

The
third community engagement session will take place at the Haliburton
Highlands Museum on Sunday, July 14 from 2 to 4 p.m.  Admission is by
donation. Anna Swanson and April White will offer a poetry reading and
artist talk based on their collaborative project “The Garbage Poems.”
Swanson and White will each present their own work from this project and
discuss how they came together to work on it.

For further information, visit www.hallsisland.ca or email hallsislandartistresidency@
gmail.com.