On Saturday, I went for a volunteer at Glenbow Museum. I expected it to just be a simple job of advising the visitors at the museum but it proved to be much more interesting than that. I’ve lived in Calgary for a while now, and I never even knew about what went on in the museum. The weekend I volunteered happened to be one of the two-day family weekends that happens at Glenbow Museum every three months. Also, it’s always filled with lovely activities aligned towards the special exhibitions at the museum for that period.
This period, one of the exhibitions is a showcase of the work of John Brocke. It was titled ‘Myth Making: The Art of John Brocke’. John Brocke was a Calgary artist who died about six years ago in 2009. His work had never been viewed by many in numbers, this is the first time where a lot of his work could be viewed at a time. I really liked his art work. I found his works to have a different and original approach to art. Most of his art works, I found, were expressions of common things around him from his own perspective. Here are a few:
Another one of the exhibitions is ‘Hooked: Fish, Water and Angling in Art’. Through many forms of art: sculpture, paintings, prints, photography; the art and culture of fishing is expressed from the lens of Southern Alberta and British Columbia streams. There was also an activity aligned towards this exhibition. Visitors had the opportunity to make a fish artwork using calligraphy art. Before this volunteer, personally, I had never done any calligraphy art and I got a chance to try it. It’s hard to get a hang of it but once you do, you get really good results and there were wonderful art works created. Here are a few artworks from this exhibition:
I really enjoyed volunteering at the Glenbow Museum. It was nice to see all the different beautiful art works. Having the opportunity to not only learn new skills but create my own mini art work was amazing. I even got a caricature of myself!
It’s very nice to know that every time you visit, there will be at least five new special exhibitions, something new to see. I encourage you all to head out to Glenbow museum for the next family weekend, with your family or even just as a volunteer. It’s a great experience!