100 Mile Arts Network comes alive again

GROUP STRENGTHENS THE ENGLISH SPEAKING ARTISTIC COMMUNITIES

Back in 2017, when all was well, Theatre Wakefield had the idea that, with a dash of funding, they would start a much-needed network for local artists: workshops, pairing artists with venues throughout the Hills, professional development, and helping artists promote their works. Because the area they had received funding for comprised several MRCs, including La Peche and Pontiac, they borrowed from the fashionable 100 Mile Diet and called it the 100 Mile Arts Network. It remained under the Theatre Wakefield umbrella for a couple of years, then in 2020 separated from them, “sort of like a next stage rocket from its booster,” and incorporated as a non-profit in 2021. Then Covid happened.

After things got well, the network came alive again. It was a little too late to get some funding in 2023, but just recently, there was good news: it has received some core funding from the provincial government to be invested in the arts and culture of the anglo area artists. Fulfilling mandates requires money, and the Network’s mandate, which is “to invigorate the local arts economy and tourism by strengthening the English-speaking artistic communities in the rural regions of the Outaouais and by establishing and operating an artistic hub of excellence,” can now receive the financial attention and growth it richly deserves. That hub of excellence will include artists of all disciplines, venue owners, event and community organizers, service providers and suppliers, media outlets and others.

Paul Brown, who lives in Cantley, is the Network’s president of the board and executive director. Paul doesn’t claim to be an artist, although he has been a knitter for 50 years, which surely makes him one. He does have experience in administration, including with a co-op art gallery, and his chosen, unpaid role at the Network’s helm makes him a necessary part of the community’s arts scene—a role he relishes.

With the funding now in place, Paul and the board are making plans for the future. “We’ll be putting on four music shows and four art shows,” he says. The form and content of the shows are still in the planning stage. There is no shortage of artistic talent in the Hills, as this column can attest, and that talent will be able to take advantage of the Network’s offer of promotional videos, workshops for artists on the business of being an artist, and something called the Community Arts Cafe, which is a workshop series. With the community of the 100 Mile artists pulling together and the dedicated work of its administrators, the next three years of arts and culture in the region look set to flourish.

It will be interesting to do an annual column over the next three years reporting on the 100 Mile Arts Network’s plans becoming reality. I look forward to it. Stand by.