The Old School House Arts Centre is pleased to announce the installation of two new banner designs by Qualicum First Nations Band member, Mathew Andreatta.

 We are honoured to have artistic representation of the Qualicum First Nation on their traditional lands and in collaboration with the arts centre.

Working together with Indigenous artists and specifically Qualicum artists is a way to acknowledge that the organization rests on ancestral unceded Indigenous lands, and Qualicum territory and represents our intentions to carry on collaborating and acknowledging this important relationship.

We feel that this is a beautiful reminder of the collaborative work that we can engage with at the heart of the arts center in Qualicum Beach. The banner in both the physical and symbolic sense to how we wish to move forward with our community arts programming of inclusivity.

As a self-taught artist, Andreatta has a unique style informed by a legacy of artists and historical work while adding hisown interpretationand hand to the history, he often looks to the older Salish styles lesser represented by many museums and galleries.

The overlapping themes of these works are Balance, this is common with most 'Salish'/NWC art forms and form-line.

Andreatta wanted to highlight it here as entering into a space of learning and creation; balance is needed within one's Self to walk in with an open heart and mind ready to offer and receive. These are visual cues and reminders for everyone who enters the space. The Front design is representative of a Knowledge Holder, in considering the name and responsibilities the building itself carries as well as the work done by those inside who hold and carry many different forms of knowledge, this design is meant to help personify and support those roles and responsibilities and gifts that learning and teaching encompasses.

The heart of this Knowledge Holder is the Old School Art Centre's logo, and we strive for all who participate in our activities to approach them with creativity, connection, community and education as well as acknowledgement for the Indigenous knowledges and relations to the land on which we are located and how they continue to inform us today.

The Gift Shop banner design is a play with the negative and positive space.

By cutting the imagery in half and reversing it in a stylized black and white, it highlights the Salish forms of the crescent and trigon, each of which can symbolize many things depending on how they're used and in relation with surrounding designs.

This design is an Echo, a reverberation, an action causing reactions, for our gift shop it reflects on buying and gifting modalities, and supporting communities and artists. Specifically, in buying a gift/handmade work of art that resonated and reflecting on the ripple effects thereafter. The purchase is community based and supports local and regional artists, and also causes the recipient to reflect not only on the joy of receiving a gift, but also on the importance of locality, support and creating connections in community with one another.

In these unprecedented times of pandemic, we kindly ask that if you are able, please consider leaving us a donation to help keep creativity flourishing while we are having to be apart.