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Denman ART Studio Tour 2025
Denman ART Studio Tour 2025
🗓 August 16 & 17 | ⏰ 10 am–4 pm | 📍 Denman Island | 🎟 Free Self-Guided Tour
The Denman ART Studio Tour returns this weekend, offering a rare chance to step inside the working spaces of more than 20 exceptional island artists. From potters and painters to weavers, sculptors, photographers, and mixed-media creators, the tour showcases the rich spectrum of talent that thrives here.
Plan Your Visit
This is a free, self-guided summer adventure perfect for families, friends, or solo wanderers. Download the map from our blog, bring your car, bike, or hop on the Island bus — and set off with a spirit of curiosity. Studios are scattered across the island, tucked in forests, perched by the sea, and hidden along winding country roads.
Each space is unique: some rustic and shaded beneath tall trees, others airy and gallery-bright. All share the same warm welcome and deep connection to Denman’s land, community, and culture.
Whether you’re revisiting old favourites or discovering new talent, you’ll find something inspiring at every stop.
🖼 Map & details: denmanstudiotour.blogspot.com
Maureen Drew’s Water Studies: An Outpouring of Art at the Summer Art Gallery
Maureen Drew’s Water Studies: An Outpouring of Art at the Summer Art Gallery
The title Water Studies is accurate, but it doesn’t describe the full breadth of the work you’ll see at Denman Island artist Maureen Drew’s upcoming exhibit of that name at the Denman Island Summer Gallery, August 21 – Sept 2, 2025.
To stick with watery metaphors, the show could be described as the current outpouring of Maureen’s life-long immersion in art, design, and creativity.
Water as theme and fluidity as a painting technique characterize about half the pieces in the show. Figures on the beach gaze out to sea; multi-hued waves undulate across the canvas. This focus emerged from a course Maureen took last year.
“I love to experiment with new techniques and recently attended North Island college. One of the artists I studied with poured paint over huge canvases, creating the effect of running water. At home in my studio I tried to emulate this technique: that was the birth of water studies. The backgrounds are the starting point for many of my beach scenes,” says Maureen.
The exhibit also includes abstracts, vibrant foxgloves and other flowery naturescapes, and a series of paintings incorporating lace doilies.
Repurposing Doilies in Contemporary Art
On her many visits to second hand shops, Maureen noticed that doilies, which used to be a treasured part of our grandmothers’ homes, were now in bags selling for just a few cents. “These doilies took an incredible amount of time and skill to make. Many of them are incredible beautiful and so I have tried to repurpose them, honouring the work of our grandmothers. I string them on hoops to make mandalas to hang in windows, and some of them I use as collage in my paintings,” says Maureen.
In one painting, an oval doily takes centre stage, a portal, an evocation of the feminine, or whatever the viewer sees in it. In another painting, a doily plays the role of a blanket covering two lovers. In another, small doilies create a textured pattern in the background.
Water and doilies are just the latest fascinations for Maureen, who has spent decades working and playing with creativity, happily ignoring the perceived borders between fine art, craft, and design.
A Life in Art
Maureen’s life in art began as a child in England. “My dad owned a store in which he repaired watches and jewellery. My job was to repair broken pearl necklaces, which were in vogue at that time. I loved to sort them into rows and restring them while listening to radio programs.”
Maureen’s family moved to Winnipeg, and at 16 she started to make her own clothes. Later on she did alterations for a living and learned to sew drapery and do small upholstery.
Maureen completed a fine art program in North Carolina and a degree in interior design in Washington state. After working in interior design for a few years, she founded the Pacific Design Academy, a private college in downtown Victoria offering programs in interior design, fashion design, building technology, and graphic design.
“Starting up that school from scratch and running it was huge. I did all the promotion, all the organizing, and I taught there. After 15 years, I was spent, and passed the school on to my son.”
Denman Island Creativity
Since moving to Denman 18 years ago, Maureen has concentrated on painting in both oil and acrylics, but of course that’s not all she creates. She has many fruit trees and a small vineyard on her property. “Autumn is juice time with the apples and pears and then when the grapes ripen it’s time to make wine,” she says.
For Maureen, the world is a cornucopia of inspiration and material, whether the medium is fruit, fabric, or paint.
Maureen Drew’s exhibit, Water Studies, takes place at the Denman Island Summer Art Gallery Thursday, August 21, to Tuesday, September 2, 2025.
Hours: Mon – Sat 11:00 am – 4:00 pm / Sunday 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm.
Opening reception: Thursday, August 21, 7:00 pm.
Community Feast Sunday August 24th
Community Feast Sunday, August 24th
All are invited to a family-friendly community feast prepared by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Studies Field School students with assistance from Denman Island’s Farm to Family Meals Service Society.
Held at the community hall, the feast will feature delicious local food donated and purchased from Denman and Comox Valley gardens and farms, and prepared and cooked by the university students. Gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan options will be available. This is a family-friendly event.
We would very much appreciate donations from our generous local gardeners to help cut costs for this event. Please contact Bee Balm at bee.farmtofamily@gmail.com if you have some lovely offerings from your garden that could be incorporated into the feast. We would be most grateful for anything you have available!
The feast is a free event, but a $donation jar will be available for those who wish to contribute. Funds collected will be split between Farm to Family and an organization of the students’ choosing.
Please bring your own plate, bowl, cup and cutlery.
6pm, Sunday, August 24th.
Hope to see you there!
Kevin Mitchell & Steve Ireland to play the Guesthouse Aug.23rd.
Sat Aug 23 @ 6:30 will see Kevin Mitchell and Steve Ireland perform at the EarthClubFactory/Guesthouse.
New original songs in the vein of alt/country/folk are on the menu, with unique and strong harmonies. Songs about real life, a musical poetry of motion…It’s been one year since they last performed at The Guesthouse with a lot of time spent fine tuning !
It promises to be a great evening of good food, great service, inspiring music, and hopefully perfect weather!
Dinner at 5 30, cover charge$20.
Hope to see you there!
Quinn, Shel & Bethany present WILD HAVEN Concert at Hall Friday Aug. 29th
Quinn, Shel & Bethany present
WILD HAVEN
Concert at Hall Friday Aug. 29th @ 6:15 Doors Open at 5:30 pm
25 Community Youth, Kevin Drew & David French!!!
We’re thrilled to share that Kevin Drew, founding member of Broken Social Scene, will be joining us at camp this year — popping in throughout the week to jam, connect, and quietly inspire our young artists.
And as a generous gift to our community, Kevin and fellow BSS member David French will perform a 30-minute set following the kids’ final performance on Friday evening at the Denman Community Hall.
This intimate show is for the kids — but we know the adults might love it too. We invite non-camper families to join us for $15 at the door — with all proceeds going toward next year’s Wild Haven Performing Arts Camp.
It’s going to be a beautiful, music-filled night — and we can’t wait to share it with you.
Mohammed on Denman
Previously, in the August 1st and October 24th, 2024 editions of The Islands Grapevine, I related the story of Mohammed Al Zaza, a young Palestinian refugee from Gaza, co-sponsored by the B.C. Muslim Association and the Vancouver chapter of Independent Jewish Voice (I.J.V.), who lived with us for several months last year. To briefly recap: he was badly injured in an Israeli “mowing the grass” bombing attack in 2011 at the age of 15, and then transported to a Tel Aviv hospital where he spent two years undergoing multiple operations, then sent back to Gaza in need of further medical treatment.
He found his way to Egypt, and then Turkey, where he was helped by the generosity of friends in Israel for 5 years. Confined to the situation, not having proper documentation as an immigrant in Turkey, Mohammed ended up in the Canadian Embassy in Ankara. Again, with the help of the same group of Jewish Israelis, and in liaison with Vancouver’s I.J.V., Mohammed was put on a flight to Canada. A friend of ours asked us to lodge him for his initial stay in Vancouver. He ended up staying with us for several months until he had to get further treatment and several operations at UBC’s Health Science, G.F. Strong and Vancouver General hospitals.
His weakened body speaks for the suffering he has had to endure all these years since that Israeli bomb changed his life forever. As if things were not bad enough, he lost three of his brothers since October 7th: one in November following the initial strike on Gaza and buried somewhere under a collapsed building, a second one killed fetching water for his family a few months ago, and a third one in need of dialysis, died for lack of medical treatment. It has been hell for him and it is only through the amazing support of friends and volunteers in Vancouver, that Mohammed has managed to keep hope guiding his indomitable spirit.
Two weeks ago he spent a few days with us on beautiful Denman Island and visited Hornby Island for lunch in Rae Maté’s beautiful art studio, and a chat with Gabor Maté. It was the first time Mohammed saw B.C. beyond Vancouver’s bustling life. In our home on Lacon, he went swimming, stretched on a deck chair, sipped strong coffee, gazed at the sea while thinking of all his family and lost friends in Gaza, who might be looking at a similar ocean thousands of miles away, wishing this nightmare would fade away. Here’s the beautiful text he wrote. It is translated from his Arabic:
“They said I would not remain, that I was finished, but they never understood that those born from the womb of this land do not die, and that those raised on sunlight and blood are never forgotten. They bombed me to silence my voice and bury my truth, but they forgot that my heartbeat echoes with the pulse of the earth, and that when I fall, my roots rise from beneath me. I am never buried. I am planted, We are the people of this land. We do not surrender what is ours, not to force nor to fear. We do not shake the hand that stole our olives, our homes, our children’s laughter. Every bullet they fire awakens a thousand memories, every wall they build tears down a thousand silences, and every attempt to erase us gives birth to a thousand rebels. I do not run. I do not forget. I am the promised one like fire, like rain, like resurrection. I am not a passing name in the footnotes of history. I am the story. I am the land itself speaking back. They tried to end me, but I am just beginning. and from me grows resistance.”
Yom Shamash, Peter Borkovitch, Yvon Raoul, Mohammed.
A great peaceful day.
Maybe You Can Judge a Book by its Cover
Ever wonder about the whimsical character sitting on the stack of books, lost in a story, shoe dangling from foot, that has become the logo of the Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival? Well, meet Paige Turner, the enthralled and enchanted reader. This year Paige opened the DI Readers and Writers Festival, and through her excited and projected imagination, the books of the 2025 festival were brought to life in a playful cat walk and dance; based not only on the appeal of the book covers, but the authors valued content. The hall was packed and the audience was mesmerized as Paige Turner and the Jackettes built excitement and foreshadowed many of the plots, protagonists and settings of the books and authors, of this year’s highly successful festival; poetic, fiction and non-fiction.
The DIRWF organizing committee wish to thank all those involved, for this energetic, uplifting and delightful kick-start to this year’s festival. For the hours of supply attainment, imagination, creativity, assembly and talent in book cover, costume development and script writing, to say nothing of the choreography and hours of rehearsal that went into this brilliant performance:
Jennifer Lee (Protagonist and Performer – Paige Turner), Sussan Thomson (Casting, Production and Stage Manager), Kerri Davis (Costume Design and Production), Quinn Lunberg (Choreographer and Lead Coach) and all the amazing Jackettes (dancing books): Natalie Mathis, Maxine Matilpi, Cathy Dixon, Catharine Wright, Evan Penner, Melissa DiPietro, Rita Arnicans, Sussan Thomson and Kerri Davis
Back-up Jackettes and rehearsal assistants: Suzanne Sulzberger, Sandra Lloyd and Caryn Rea (Crea).
You are so appreciated!
- The DIRWF Committee