About the Exhibition
The Albion Community Centre is one of many sites local artists can share their work with their Maple Ridge neighbours. While you are visiting the community centre this Fall you can see the work of the Maple Ridge Artists in Residence along with a fabulous work, Grandmother Moon Quilt, 2024, created by local artist and quilter, Jocelyn McIntosh. Local Métis artist and educator Jocelyn McIntosh began her collaboration with the Albion Community Centre in 2023, leading a Bead Art class as part of Culture Days. She returned in 2024 to share her knowledge through a Tea Blending and Plant Wisdom workshop. Continuing this meaningful partnership, the Centre proudly displays the Grandmother Moon Quilt in the Social Heart. This beautiful piece was created in collaboration with Louise Ducharme and Wenda McIntosh.
Constellations | Alex Neff
Carefully chosen to invite an introduction to relationship building and community, this selection of portraits celebrates a group of folks who have had an incredible impact on the artist-providing guidance, stability, and reliable direction. As you spend time with these portraits, consider the relationships in your own life; what community looks like for you; what it could look like for you. Feel encouraged to start building that community by reaching out to the friends and family these portraits remind you of. Community begins with conversation.
About the Artist
Alex Neff (they/them) is the Artist in Residence at the Raymond House. They are a spouse, son, brother, friend, and colleague who works, learns, plays, and lives on the Unceded Territories of the Katzie First Nation and Kwantlen First Nation. Alex embraces their neurodivergency as, through their art, they explore activating alternative economies such as gratitude, perspective, and creative skills. Through their work with Drawing Thanks, Alex has hand-drawn over 3000 folks across the Lower Mainland, pairing each portrait with a signature thank-you note. Working with community partners such as The HUB (Coast Mental Health), Inclusion BC, Fraser Valley Regional Library, and Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Katzie Local Immigration Partnership, Alex looks to use their portraiture to ensure everyone who wants to engage with the project can be celebrated for their community contributions— whether their efforts are well known broadly, or preciously shared within an inner circle.
River Weather Variable | Colleen Brown
Composed of contributions by over 50 artists who donated works at workshops, meetings or at HUTCH, these collages express each artist's thoughts of real and imagined landscapes, brought together into a single image.
About the Artist
Colleen Brown (she/her) is one of the Maple Ridge Artists in Residence. Colleen holds a BFA from Emily Carr University, a BA Psyc, Simon Fraser University and an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, New York. Her most recent solo exhibitions were held at the Ranger Station, Burrard Foundation, and Unit 17. She participated in recent exhibitions and events at the Belkin Art Gallery; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Vancouver Art Gallery; Western Gallery, Bellingham and Hedreen Gallery, Seattle. Brown is a recipient of the 2016 Portfolio Prize. Her first book, If you lie down in a field she will find you there, published by Radiant Press, was a finalist for the 2024 Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize. Colleen is a committed teacher, working with young children in galleries, with teens in the classroom and seniors as part of community-based work. She is a sessional faculty member at Emily Carr University. Colleen has supported artists' work throughout her career, most recently as the General Manager of Vancouver Poetry House from 2019-2023.
More About the Artist in Residence Program
The Artist in Residence Program (AiR) provides an opportunity for artists to create arts-based community engagement through projects and activities that have a meaningful impact to residents of all ages and abilities, in exchange for live-work studio housing. The program's purpose is to enhance community cultural development and pride of place by activating and animating neighbourhoods, public facilities, and parks through programming and community engagement activities that focus on topics of interest to our community.
The residencies are based on terms of approximately three years. In exchange for a minimum number of hours of community engagement programs and activities in approved project(s), artists are offered a lease for the space at no charge to be used only as an active live-work studio and house. The Artist in Residence Program (AiR) is supported through the City of Maple Ridge.
The City of Maple Ridge respectfully acknowledges that we are located on the traditional territories of the Katzie (q̓ic̓əy̓) First Nation and Kwantlen (qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓) First Nation.
