Artist-Run Centre culture is one of pushing boundaries, promoting experimental practices and building spaces for critical and contemporary discussion. Basically, it’s not your grandma’s mainstream gallery full of still-life flower paintings. No offence, I love a good still-life, but we need Artist-Run Centres in our communities if we want to continue to grow. These alternative spaces tend to become home base for punk shows, poetry readings, live performances and community-driven initiatives. These magical places challenge our perspectives, create new pathways of thinking and create a community for young, emerging and professional artists to thrive. Most importantly, White Water Gallery brings high calibre art to the Nipissing Region.
Exhibition Faster the Light Fades by Dominic Pinney and Conrad Marion 2020
North Bay and the Nipissing region have their very own magic Artist-Run Centre, one with some pretty heavy historical significance I might add. White Water Gallery is one of Ontario’s very first artist-run-centres, and with over 40 years under its belt, now one of the longest-running. It was established in 1977 by a group of local artists, who found themselves in one way or another, living in a small Northern City with no gallery space at all. Well, you can’t very well develop an arts scene with no place to cultivate the masses! Over many potluck meetings around many kitchen tables, the founding members pulled up their socks and made an idea turn into fruition. This group of ambitious folks included: Bryan Maycock, Dennis Geden, Lillian Thalheimer, Jill Maycock, Jane Agnew, Keith Campbell, Ford Colyer, Jane Perry and Michael Couchie. Each throwing in $100 and hours (and hours… and years…) of elbow grease, this group created an alternative art space, run by artists for artists.
White Water Gallery exists to push artistic innovation and fringe ideas and has programmed amazing talents over the years (that are documented on their digital archives online, which I fully suggest you check out). Many of these artists went on to national and international acclaim including Jeannie Thib, Barbara Astman, Carl Beam, Suzy Lake, Ho Tam & Shary Boyle
The Cast – WWG 1977 Photo courtesy of Keith Campbell
But White Water didn’t just provide space for exhibition, it built the foundation for artists to live, and work in North Bay and Nipissing region. It became a reason to stay, to grow and encourage artists to fully commit to Northern Ontario. It built something we ‘poor artists’ can call home, which has and will continue, to breed new resilient creatives for generations.
I’m talking about a space that keeps its doors open to everyone. Any age group, any level of income, social standing or education. A ‘come as you are’ policy. Even for your sweet grandma (who may still prefer still-life florals, but only really knows that because she has access to alternative art to compare it to).
Exhibition – Of the Mountain and the Ravine by Anna Eyler and Nicolas Lapointe 2020
White Water Gallery has called many different locations home over the years, from second and third-story floors to street-level access. It has grown, shrunk, almost disappeared to reappear as bigger and stronger. It’s pivoted more than a LeBron James in the 4th quarter during NBA finals. Resilience and creativity lie at the heart of an Artist-Run Centre and White Water Gallery’s history stands to testify. Even now, seeking new ways to grow.
Speaking about growth – In 2019, White Water Gallery added something new to its constitution. Moving forward the Gallery will be guided by Indigenous Elders and Knowledge keepers to ensure that current and future Board Members, staff, and exhibiting Artists can be held to account and can seek guidance into working in good ways. Talk about onwards and upwards. Again, White Water is leading the way and forging a path for not just creatives but better communities.
Dennis Geden, a founding member of the gallery wrote of the spaces 40+ years of history “White Water has looked death in the face numerous times then fresh blood (poor artists) would appear and it would carry on.” It’s the tenacity of generations of ‘poor artists’ who are willing to volunteer hours of their time, willing to walk the uphill battle of arts funding (or lack thereof), willing to continually show up time and time again, it’s the folks who are NOT willing to give up that make White Water Gallery a living example of growth, adaptation, perseverance and downright grit. It’s a space of magic and lives right here in North Bay – from idea to forever.
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Exhibition – A Northern Locality Surviving North Bay by Broken City Lab – 2012
Arts & Culture proudly supported by Creative Industries.
