Community curator

Ruth Payne believes in building community through the visual arts.

“Oh, I love this quote,” says Ruth Payne, the visual arts coordinator for the Ferry Building Gallery, as she flips open a booklet entitled Art Is Your Business.

“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money. It’s by Oscar Wilde and I think it’s perfect.”

The reason she loves the quote, she explains, is because art is a billion-dollar business that affects not only artists and art lovers but also communities.

She firmly believes the heart and soul of a community is founded in art and culture and that West Vancouver has the potential to be the number one art community in Canada.

Any why not? There are plenty of budding artists right here on the North Shore. All they need to grow is the right infrastructure in place to showcase their work, greater public awareness and an understanding of how to market themselves and their art work. And that’s where Payne comes in.

A champion of local artists, Payne’s mission is to demystify the art gallery process for the artist and the public. Not a small task, but one she happily tackles on a daily basis. And she can already see the results of providing art lectures and tours, teaching art classes and hosting artist demos and networking groups.

“Artists today are more conscious, aware and professional than they were 10 years ago. And it is because the community is taking art more seriously and as a result artists are starting to see value in what they do and what they produce,” Payne said.

It is an international trend, recognizing the role art plays in shaping communities, and she wants nothing more than to help that process evolve. In fact, it is that part of her job that Payne is most passionate about, connecting art to the community through the visual arts. And with her roots in West Vancouver and her background in visual display it makes perfect sense.

Before starting at the Ferry Building Gallery, Payne worked designing window displays for storefronts and trade shows. In her spare time she toiled with paints and canvases painting abstract acrylics. Gradually her art work became the backdrop for her mannequins and led her to a job designing West Vancouver store windows for the Harmony Arts Festival.

What followed was a job as a festival juror and then a coveted position as curator for the Ferry Building Gallery. Fourteen years later she has just wrapped the most successful Harmony Arts Festival to date and isn’t taking a breath. She has art marketing classes to teach, artist network gatherings, also known as the Arts Connection, to organize and a gallery to run.

On top of that, Payne is working on developing a painters’ corner so artists can showcase their work on the gallery landing and grant applications for her 2010 Faces of Culture show, all in an effort to help bring art and community together. And her hard work is paying off. With more than 60,000 visitors entering the Ferry Building Gallery this year alone local artists are getting more exposure than ever.

“Sometimes I think I am more of a midwife than a curator because I birth artists,” Payne laughed. “This is where many local successful artists have gotten their beginnings and I am really proud of that.”

–The Ferry Building Gallery is located at 1414 Argyle Ave. in West Vancouver and is open Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about the gallery phone 604-925-7290 or visit gallery@westvancouver.ca.