Getting tired of just lounging around the house looking at pictures of all your friends vacationing in distant places and wondering why you aren’t having any fun? I sure am.
Despite its size in population, the South Cariboo is probably one of the more artistic places I have lived in, from the murals painted around town to the number of artists showcasing their craft in the many galleries around town.
Usually, when one of those artists puts on a show at the Parkside Art Gallery or the Showcase Gallery in the first floor of the South Cariboo Business Centre, I go out and talk to them for a decent amount of time, snap some pictures and dip. I don’t ever get to really appreciate the art though because I’m focused on the job at hand.
So I decided that maybe now is the time to do so.
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There are about five galleries in the 100 Mile House area and plenty more in the larger area such as Lac la Hache.
The Chris Harris Studio Gallery is located on Back Valley Road, just a ten or so minute drive from downtown 100 Mile House. The gallery showcases its namesake’s photography skills exploring the Cariboo-Chilcotin area, including volcanic ranges from Itcha Illgachuz Provincial.
As Chris Harris told me, a lot of people even in the vast area haven’t explored much of the region and I’m not an exception to that. Looking at his photos hanging from his gallery’s walls gave me a better understanding of the broad and diverse landscape in the area. Best of all, I could appreciate it without having to drive or fly for more than five hours and spend a lot of money. So take that, friends.
Chris Harris has also published a number of coffee table-sized photo books of his travels and produced two 30-min documentaries. The Chilcotin Ark and The Wildfire Summer of 2017: A Photographer’s Journey can be viewed on a large screen TV at the gallery.
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Copies are available for purchase at the gallery and at www.chrisharris.com/shop. While Google says that the gallery is closed on certain days and times, this is not actually the case. The gallery is open by appointment or as Harris likes to say, by chance.
The photographer also instructs workshops in the South Cariboo and the province, including a stop at the Parkside Art Gallery on Birch Avenue just in town.
The Parkside Art Gallery, whose exterior is actually a work of art itself, is another one I took a gander around.
Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays to Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m on Saturday, Parkside is dedicated to featuring the art of South Cariboo artists no matter their discipline.
A gallery of Harris’ body of work is the main feature there right now, but they also feature several pieces of art from Neil Pinkett, Chuck Brager, Barb Brown and several other local artists.
The 38th Annual Arts Show and Sale will be the latest main attraction at Parkside, beginning on July 26 and going to Sept. 8.
For something a little different than your standard paintings and photography, the More Than Wood Art Gallery showcases 30 artists from British Columbia (most of them from the Cariboo) who work mostly with wood as their canvas.
The gallery is located on 916 Alpine Ave., just beside Highway 97 as you are coming into town. It is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday but will have extended hours during the summer.
More than 200 pieces of art are inside the small gallery that just opened up in the Spring of 2018 and range from furniture to sculptures of animals to pottery.
Two other galleries in the area are the Showcase Gallery inside the South Cariboo Business Centre (also popularly known as the ‘Green Building’) and the Stone Bear Gallery on the corner of 1st Street and Dogwood. Vance Theoret, the owner and artist behind the Stone Bear Gallery, carves depictions of bears and other wildlife out of stone.
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