Photo Gallery

BY AUSTIN PAYEUR

COMMUNITY NEWS 

TOWN & COUNTRY NEWS

While the thunder rolled and the rain came down, friends and families raised a toast to the local young artists who had their work unveiled at a major Clairmont park.

From May 12 to June 12, local artists were encouraged to submit their work to the County of Grande Prairie to have them displayed in the park. 

On July 28, the winning artists for the Art for the Park program had their work unveiled at Clairmont Adventure Park, a combination community garden, skate park, and splash park.

Out of eight submissions, Daelyn Biendarra’s Dream View, Cassidy Guenther’s Skateboarder.png, and Quinn Goldberg’s Fox Mountain now decorate the eastern wall of the park.

Megan Schur, county parks and recreation projects manager, says the county plans on holding more Art for the Park programs in the future.

Biendarra says of Dream View that, “I made my painting just because I like the outdoors. I love oil painting and acrylic painting; I've basically been painting since I was a kid. 

“My mom saw the contest on Facebook and texted me, saying ‘You have to apply to this!’ It was kind of a nice way to put my work out into the world.”

That link to the Internet was also what inspired Guenther’s Skateboarder.png.

“I was thinking of the skateboarding area, and then incorporating that into the modernism of the Internet in today’s society, and just cramming them together,” says Guenther.

As for Goldberg, she decided to take inspiration from things she likes.

“I decided to paint Fox Mountain because I like drawing canines and wilderness and mountains, and I thought that a canine on a big rock in front of the mountains would be a lovely picture,” she says.

Goldberg was also the artist selected for the second part of Art for the Park, a project to decorate the western chain link fence.

“Alberta is one of the biggest producers of honey in Canada, and so I thought, why not do pollinators!” says Goldberg.

“We could do something so people could learn about them.”

Goldberg will be working with county staff and volunteers to decorate the chain link fence with bumblebees, butterflies and other important pollinators.

“We’re going to be working with Quinn to bring her vision to life,” says Schur.

The art unveiling also coincided with the announcement that the splash park section of the Clairmont Adventure Park was being re-opened. 

While nobody was keen to use the splash park during the unveiling on account of the weather, families are encouraged to come on down to the park to try and beat the heat.