Art in Queensborough: We’ve got a song! (And a video!)

How about this, people: our upcoming (Saturday, Aug. 24) Queensborough extravaganza called Art in Queensborough/Queensborough in Art – which is going to be one for the ages, I’ll tell you that right now – has not only a theme song, but an official video!

Jamie Grant and Tory Byers, who have brought the Orange Hall back to life. This photo was taken on Historic Queensborough Day 2017, the first time visitors got a chance to peek inside and see what they were doing with this great old building. A lot has been done since then! (Photo by Gary Pattison)

This comes thanks to Jamie Grant, co-owner (with his amazing wife, Tory Byers) of the historic Orange Hall in Queensborough, now named the Queensborough Arts Centre. As you probably know from my most recent post, the Queensborough Arts Centre (24 King St., Queensborough) is going to be the focal point for our extraordinary celebration on Aug. 24 of Queensborough’s historic place in the Canadian art world.

Jamie is not only a very talented graphic artist, digital superstar and old-building renovator; he’s also an accomplished musician. Kind of a Renaissance man, really.

It’s Jamie who has created the gorgeous publicity materials – rack cards and posters – with which we’ve been blanketing the Madoc-Tweed–Marmora area (and beyond) to let people know about Queensborough in Art/Art in Queensborough. Here, take a look:

The gorgeous poster that Jamie Grant designed for our art event.

As I’ve been going from storefront to storefront asking if we can put up these posters, I’m tickled by the response I get when people see them: “How beautiful!” And of course I always credit Jamie.

But now, in addition to all that great printed stuff, there’s a song and a video! And they’re more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Not only is the song a bit of an earworm (meaning you can’t get it out of your head; it seems to be the new soundtrack of my regular five-mile walks around the Queensborough “block”), but the video images are a hoot. Over images of Queensborough (and some other stuff) is a recurring spread of orange – for the Orange Hall, of course. But my favourite part is when there’s a shot of Jamie singing in a reproduction of the famous Vincent Van Gogh painting Bedroom in Arles. Here’s Vincent’s original:

And here’s Jamie, singing about Art in Queensborough in – well, a very similar setting:

 And the absolute best part is that, walking across the bottom of the screen as Jamie sings about Art in Queensborough in Vincent’s bedroom, is Maude the dog. (Or is it Maisie? Jamie and Tory have two beloved canines, and I can never keep them straight.)

I just want to say that this video makes me smile more broadly every time I watch it. I hope the same is true for you.

Meanwhile, in other Art in Queensborough/Queensborough in Art news:

The gorgeous rack cards that Jamie designed to help us publicize the event. Click to enlarge.

Since last I wrote about the grand event a week or so ago, still more artworks have materialized for the show that will be mounted in the Orange Hall. These new arrivals include a painting set in Queensborough by Mary Schneider, co-founder of the Schneider School of Fine Arts in nearby Actinolite (that school being one of the big reasons Queensborough is on the art map, thanks to instructors of the calibre of A.Y. Jackson of the Group of Seven – who also painted in Queensborough, and you can see the resulting work on Aug. 24), and a piece of Queensborough-themed folk art by the legendary Goldie Holmes, whose famous Queensborough quilt will also be on display at the show. All in all it looks like we will have well over 100 pieces of art featuring or inspired by Queensborough, or done by Queensborough artists. At the rate things are coming in it’s hard to keep track, but I can tell you right now this is going to be a big – and beautiful – show.

And as you know from my previous post, the exhibition isn’t the only thing this day will be about. There will be…

• Music in the streets of Queensborough
• Art activities for kids
• Artists at work (quite of few of them) throughout the village, ready to answer your questions and talk about their work
• Self-guided walking tours of our beautiful, historic village
• And of course, of course, this being Queensborough, there will be excellent food. I will tell you more about the food part in a later post.
• And: if you’d like to purchase a beautiful souvenir of Queensborough – aside, that is, from one of the artworks that will be for sale – we will have some nice options for you, and more on that in yet another later post.

The Orange Garden, where you can enjoy a picnic lunch before or after viewing the art.

I’m getting pretty excited about all this, and I hope you are too. So come on, hum a few bars with me:

Are you going, going to the show?
Queensborough in Art – Art in Queensborough!
There will be artists on the streets
Depicting beauty that they see;
Troubadours sing and walk around,
And everyone’s welcome to the town.
The mill and the Black River are there for all –
Picnic in the garden at the Orange Hall.
You’ll have a ball for one and all!
Are you going to the show?
Queensborough in Art – Art in Queensborough!
August 24th, rain or snow (!)
Are you going to go?
Art in Queensborough!