Art Beat: This sculpture you can sit on unveiled in Gibsons

A new installation has been unveiled along the Town of Gibsons’s new Public Art Path. Cambria Logan’s Wood Mural — constructed of reclaimed cedar and fir — is located at the foot of Mahan Road. During a morning celebration at the site on Sept. 25, two dozen adults and children gathered for refreshments while inspecting the wooden mural, which is surrounded by native plants. 

The wooden mural includes a bench and live greenery. Logan incorporated a sun motif in yellow cedar that was originally carved by her mother, Anna Hanson, for the District of Sechelt’s Welcome to Sechelt sign.  

“We recently took it off and replaced it with a new sun,” said Logan. “We thought it was too badly damaged, but we were able to fix it, sand it, seal it, and install it here [in Gibsons]. Hopefully it’s good to go for another 35 years.” 

Logan’s Wood Mural joins two other sculptures that have already been installed along the Public Art Path: Breaching Whale, by David Evanson, and Macro Forest Images, by Alan Sirulnikoff. Two more artworks are planned, which will bring the $50,000 grant-funded initiative to completion.

Pender Harbour swings into gear 

The inaugural show of the Pender Harbour Concert Society’s 2022–2023 season played to a full house on Sept. 25, as Van Django (Cameron Wilson, Budge Schachte, Finn Manniche, and Brent Gubbels) shared their infectious blend of jazz age swing at the Pender Harbour School of Music. 

One week before appearing with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble charmed its audience with fast-paced virtuosic numbers — many composed by the group’s namesake, Romani-French guitarist Django Reinhardt — as well as selections penned by band members themselves. A high-spirited tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven (A Fist of Beethoven) and a heartwarming number by guitarist Budge Schachte in honour of his son (Jamming With Liam) rounded out the two-hour program. 

The Concert Society returns with its Fall Chamber Music Weekend, featuring James Campbell and the Lafayette String Quartet on Oct. 22 and 23. Details of the series are available online at penderharbourmusic.ca. 

More drama ahead as existential mashup wraps 

Three performances of the theatrical tour de force Nothing To Be Done, featuring actors Richard Austin and Micheal Oswald in a production directed by Anthony Paré, distilled three classics of existential drama for audiences at the Gibsons Heritage Playhouse on Sept. 24 and 25. 

Austin himself wrote linking scenes that joined Babel Rap (by Canadian playwright John Lazarus), Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.  

In a Shakespearian twist, audience members were invited to round out the characters’ short-lived existence with applause, which the imaginative and thought-provoking staging earned through their deft rendition. 

The Driftood Players return to the Heritage Playhouse starting Oct. 13 with eight performances of Kico Gonzales-Russo’s two-act play Timepiece. Tickets and details are available at heritageplayhouse.com. 

For theatre fans, the next installment of the Off the Page play reading series picks up on Oct. 2. Inquisition (also by Gonzales-Russo) features Wanda Nowicki and Dave Hurtubise in a serious two-person drama about shocking confessions. The show takes place at 1 p.m. at the Heritage Playhouse; admission is by donation. 

Soul survivor coming to local screens 

The Sunshine Coast Film Society presents its next screening on Oct. 3 (at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons) and Oct. 6 (at the Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt). 

Summer of Soul is part music film and part historical record. It was created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, the Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park).  

The footage was never seen and largely forgotten — until now. The feature-length film includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more. 

Society membership and admission details are online at scfs.ca.