Canmore’s brand new arts centre opened last week to the fanfare of a welcoming community and many residents and visitors checked out what it has to offer.
The celebrations began on Thursday (Sept. 24) when Mayor John Borrowman was joined by Banff-Cochrane MLA Cam Westhead and Premier Rachel Notley, who made her first official appearance in Canmore since being elected.
It was, of course, a special moment for Borrowman, who not only sits as the current mayor, but moved to Canmore in the ’70s as a potter and one third of Stonecroft Studios.
“I really want to savour this moment as the mayor, as a community resident and as a longtime potter,” he said. “It is a moment that many of us have talked about, dreamed, imagined, stressed over and did I say talked about for a very long time.”
The idea of an arts centre for the community is well over 30 years old, Borrowman said, from iterations like the Mineside Cultural Centre to the Lamphouse Centre for the Arts. But it has been over the last five years that momentum was achieved to develop an arts centre in its current location. Originally an ALCB liquor store, the building served Canmore readers as a library until it was relocated into Elevation Place early 2013.
“This artsPlace that stands behind me is a community creation,” Borrowman said. “We took 8,000 square feet and completely repurposed it.
“We responded to budget restraints and challenges that seemed to morph and change at every turn. We fine tuned, refined, refined some more and then went back to the drawing board, as the architects will attest.
“We worked together, faced challenges and found solutions. After all of that, we built something for the benefit of the whole community and for the benefit of future generations of Canmore residents.”
ArtsPlace President Lynne MacLeod said completion of the major community facility was the result of financial support from various levels of government, arts organizations and volunteer groups.
“The volunteer effort from the community has been absolutely stellar,” she said. “Dozens of Canmorites donated hundreds of hours of their time, energy and expertise working on this project.
“This is a product of our community. ArtsPlace exists because our community came together to fulfill a need, so today we have a community arts centre so everyone from toddlers to seniors can come to discover and grow their creativity.”
As MLA, Westhead welcomed the new facility to Canmore and the benefits it will have for residents and visitors by making arts and creativity more accessible.
“There are no doubts that the arts play a significant role in improving our quality of life, bringing people together, providing economic opportunities and enhancing tourism,” he said.
“It is (the arts) diversity of dialogue and freedom to explore divergent ideas that only serves to make us stronger and what better place to inspire Albertans than this beautiful setting we have here in the Bow Valley that fosters creativity and innovation in everyone who lives or visits here?”
But it was Premier Notley who saw within the story of Canmore a parable for the rest of Alberta to learn from, with the celebration of artsPlace setting the stage.
“Not that many years ago, Canmore was a different place than it is today,” she said, referring to the community’s coal mining past that ended when the mines closed in 1979. “It was the end of an era for a town that had always depended on mining a non-renewable resource for its prosperity, identity and sense of community.”
Facing uncertainty without its major industry, Canmore was a host city of the 1988 Winter Olympics and in the years since it has grown into an admired tourism destination, said Notley.
“Culturally, Canmore has incredible diversity … artsPlace is a wonderful reflection of Canmore’s cultural spirit,” she said. “We have benefited greatly from our resource industries over the last century and we know those industries will continue to be important to our prosperity for years to come.
“But at the same time, we need to be on the lookout for that bold vision, for that next transition and remember the advantages we have as a young, diverse, creative society with a very lively spirit and we should strive to bring the same energy to Alberta that we find here at artsPlace to come together to create an even better Alberta for all of us.”
Go to www.artsplacecanmore.com for more information on programs and services offered at the new facility.
