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The Pacific Brant
Carving and Art Show
has
its roots in the Parksville/Qualicum area on Vancouver Island. in 1991, volunteers
from the Mid Island Wildlife Watch Society organized the first Brant
Wildlife Festival to be held every April when the Pacific Brant
Geese stop in the area to rest and feed before continuing to their
Arctic breeding grounds.
One
of the events at the Brant Festival was a wildlife woodcarving
competition, sponsored by the Vancouver Island Woodcarvers Club.
In 2006, the festival was taken over by The Nature Trust of
British Columbia and in 2010 the woodcarving show was moved to
Victoria and re-named the Pacific Brant Carving and Art Show.
The
show has grown to be one of Canada's best known wildlife
woodcarving competitions and has been featured in the US
publication "Wildfowl Carving Magazine" for the past three years.
In recent years, the show has been expanded to include a
woodturning competition as well as including many commercial
booths featuring the Island's top wildlife artists. The show
attracts many popular BC wildlife artists, photographers and
sculptors as
well as giving talented carvers and turners from across the
Pacific Northwest and Canada a venue to display their work and
compete among each other for ribbons and cash prizes.
This
year, the
show will be held at the
Mary Winspear Centre
in Sidney and we
hope this wonderful venue will become the new home for the show. This will
be our largest show to date and will feature the
Island's top wildlife artists and photographers. Woodcarvers from across Canada and the US will compete for ribbons and cash awards
and many of their carvings will be offered for sale..
The wood turning competition was a new addition to the show last
year and has attracted top wood turners from across the region.
Silent and live auctions, wildlife art, photographs and
carvings, a wood turning competition, fish carvings, door
prizes, free seminars by the artists and carvers, and even a
chance to win a Rainbow Trout. A Saturday night "Meet &
Greet" the carvers & artists
complete with refreshments and a live auction of wildlife art.
Two
3-day pre-show
seminars will be held the week of the show. A Novice to Intermediate
Stellers Jay carving workshop with Saskatchewan carver Cam Merkle, who placed second in Worlds, Master Class, at the Ward World
Competition in 2010. Plus an acrylic painting workshop
with Mark Hobson, one of the worlds top wildlife painters, will
also be held the three days before the show. Click on the
'seminars' tab above for details or to register. |
