Peggy's Cove Area Festival of the Arts: Opening Night and Paint Peggy's Cove

Three years ago I had the great idea that we should host a small, weekend arts festival at Bay Hammocks. A few artists creating art on the lawn, some music and perhaps something for the kids.

So I phoned a couple of artist friends. "What a great idea" they said. "but there is not much to paint at Bay Hammocks. Why don't we go out and paint Peggy's Cove? We will help organize it." Good idea.

Then I phoned Sarah Irwin, a friend, an artist and the co-owner of The Finer Diner, a popular restaurant down the Peggy's Cove Road in Hackett's Cove. "I think we should have a studio tour" said Sarah, "I will help organize it. I will call my artist friends and we can meet here at the Finer Diner to make plans."

The next day I bumped into Paula Fredericks at The Bike and Bean coffee and bike shop. Another local hang-out. Paula is the owner of Cornucopia Marketing, a marketing and website design company and Acoustic Roof, a business the puts musical artists and house concert hosts in contact with each other. "I can organize a musical event and do the marketing for all the events." She said.

And then Bay Hammocks, The Finer Diner and supportive friends Geoff Le Boutillier and Jan Miller chipped in some money.

And The Peggy's Cove Festival of the Arts was born.

This year the festival opened with a great reception at Shining Waters Marine, organized by Sarah and her committee and last weekend was the third annual "Paint Peggy's Cove".  With 38 artists in the village and out on the rocks painting and chatting with visitors. Following are a few pictures:

The  crowd at the Opening Reception

Lots of art for sale at silent auction

You could fish in the Fish Tank to win the item of your choice from the auction table

Five of our member artists created "fresh fish" while guests watched and discussed the process.

And then at Paint Peggy's Cove:

A temporary art gallery was created using a rented Mongolian Yurt

Paintings the participating artists brought from their studios was displayed for sale on the walls

Pods in the centre were erected to display the fresh art created during the event

Over 40 volunteers were on hand to help the painters, bring finished art to the yurt and explain the event to visitors to Peggy's Cove

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did a piece for the evening news

Claire served great hot dogs

Lovely music at the entrance to the Yurt

All in all a fun weekend. 

I am really looking forward to this weekend's studio tour and the musical concert featuring the Hupman Brothers and Ian Sherwood on Saturday night. You can buy tickets for the concert here. It promises to be a fun evening.

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