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Okanagan art to be sold at Kelowna airport

The program invites all artists from the YLW catchment area—B.C.'s Southern Interior—to take part.

Suk’wtemsqilxw West Kelowna Arts Council (SWAC) announced July 24 that a memo of understanding has been signed with Skyway Gourmet Ventures at Kelowna International Airport (YLW) to have Okanagan art available for purchase.

The art work will become available December of this year.

The altruistic goal is to provide the traveler with remembrances of the beauty and graciousness that is the Okanagan and to take a piece of it home with them. SWAC’s goal is retail success for the artists and for Skyway and to this end, artworks will be juried into the airport based on content, ability, size and price.

“Community engagement is important to us. Not what our community can do for us but what we can do for our community, to paraphrase JFK. Our goal is to empower our artists, and encourage them to become a vital and integral entrepreneurial part of the local and tourist landscape,” SWAC chair Julia Trops said in a press release.

“Although SWAC is located in Westbank/West Kelowna, we have developed a program that invites and supports all artists from the YLW catchment area. We also hope there will be a continued artist/client relationship even after the sale as many tourists are repeat visitors,” Trops said.

“Part of the work we do here at the WFN Sncəwips Heritage Museum is to help support our artists and provide them with as many opportunities as we can,” said Westbank First Nation heritage officer/cultural curator Tracy Satin. “Being able to purchase a unique, one-of-a-kind piece of local First Nation art not only supports artists in the WFN community but gives visitors the chance to experience and take with them something very special, something they cannot find anywhere else in the world.”

David Mah, Skyway Gourmet Ventures president said: “We are very pleased to be in this partnership with SWAC and to offer local artworks available for purchase to those flying out of YLW.  We look forward to the continued growth of this program."

In order to keep artworks fresh and appealing, SWAC has implemented performance ratios and cycles for the accepted cultural items in order to provide fair opportunity for all interested artists.

All artists from the YLW catchment area—B.C.’s Southern Interior—are welcome to apply. If you would like more information on the Suk’wtemsqilxw West Kelowna Arts Council (SWAC), or how to apply to this project, email swac.arts@gmail.com or visit the website http://www.swac-arts.com.