Artists Create Works of Art and Self-sustaining Fund

Community Foundation’s Professional Visual Artists Fund supports artists ongoing work

The Greater Saint John Community Foundation and The New Brunswick Museum teamed up to celebrate a group of local artists who have come forward since 2003 to assist visual artists both with events to show case their talents and to encourage and advance their careers through a new permanently endowed Professional Visual Artists Fund. The new fund was established with $3,000, and has reached $10,000, triggering a grants program to be inaugurated in 2009. It was launched at the New Brunswick Museum Sept. 1, 2005, at a final showing of “Art and Artifacts”, the second fundraiser event of the Fund’s supporters.

The first event, an Art in The City Studio and Gallery Tour in 2003, generated monies to establish the Fund, which will dispense artists’ grants through the community foundation and museum. A small group of dedicated artists, Suzanne Hill, Carol Taylor, Lynn Wigginton, Pat Schell and Kate Kerr initially dubbed themselves “The Tea Towel Team”.  The project grew and twenty four professional artists and craftspeople, were part of the 2005 “Art and Artifacts” event. They created and showcased significant works of art that relate to some aspect of the New Brunswick Museum’s collections. It is a uniquely conceived and creative project, which truly demonstrated the New Brunswick spirit, significant local talent and heritage simultaneously.

Left to right Suzanne Hill, Pat Schell, Carol Taylor, Lynn Wigginton,

Andrew Kierstead, Holly MacKay and Wendy Martindale

The founding group, Suzanne Hill, Carol Taylor, Lynn Wigginton, Pat Schell and Kate Kerr, recognized the precarious financial situation of most artists and the substantial costs they incur to participate in making a submission for a show and if successful, being in one. With this in mind, they set out to establish a permanent fund, The Professional Visual Artists Fund, with The Greater Saint John Community Foundation, is tailored to support artists’ ongoing work with earnings from the fund. The vision is that this permanent fund will grow as it is augmented from proceeds from such events as the Studio Tour in 2003 and The “Art and Artifacts” event in 2005, “WhoDunIt” in 2007, as well as future gifts and events. Fund earnings will be directed annually to deserving artists in recognition of the financial burden of mounting submissions for shows. “Staging these events took time, determination and commitment to their fellow artists” said Jane Barry, Executive Director of The Greater Saint John Community Foundation. “I commend the group for this generous and innovative new fund”.

The “Art and Artifacts” show will continue to be publicly available through generous support from The McKean Family Foundation, a legacy of the late Mary McKean, a philanthropist and teacher from Saint John. Funding of $10,000 has been granted to create an “Art and Artifacts” web-site through The New Brunswick Museum, an institution in which Miss McKean was particularly interested. Jane Fullerton, Director of the museum stated “The works of art created demonstrate the diversity of the Museum’s collection and the talent of Saint John artists. We are delighted that we will be able to continue to share them through a virtual exhibition”

Following the opening of Art and Artifacts an anonymous donor came forward with a gift to substantially augment the fund. The group held a third unique fundraising event, and a sell-out, called Who-Dun-It, in October 2007. It featured works of art contributed by local artists and involved identification of the works’ artists by the successful and appreciative “purchasers”.

Suzanne Hill, Andrew Kierstead and Lynn Wigginton are professional artists who helped

organize and contribute to a mystery fundraiser gala art show/sale called WhoDunIt?

October 26, 2007, at the New Brunswick Museum to benefit the permanently endowed fund for their peers.