News Clippings - A bit of FLAG Waving from 2000

FLAG is very much a part of theTownship of Langley community and sincerely appreciates the ongoing support received from the local newspapers.

Masks and Faces April 28, 2000

Masks face show by Erin McKay, The Langley Advance News

A number of artists are putting their best face forward this weekend. Fort Langley Artists Group is opening its 2000 series of shows at the CN Station gallery, and will kick off the season with an exhibition called "Masks and Faces."

The public is invited to see the work of the 18 artists participating. We've got everything from Native to Hallowe'en fantasy-type, to theatre-related influences, said FLAG member Diana Scholtens. "it's all over the board."

To pick a theme, the artists submit titles of shows they would like to work on, and the decision ismade by a process of elimination. "It encourages new works, every season, every year," Scholtens said of having a theme. "It gives us a really good push, and goal setting for all of us."

This year FLAG took a teamwork approach to its theme, and offered workshops on mask making, where various artisits shared their areas of expertise.

The artists themselves will add an element of interest to the opening by wearing masks they have made, but not all the artists will be showing masks for the exhibit. Some will enter paintings, prints, pottery, or sculpture inspired by the theme.

Having artists working in a variety of mediums is inspiring for the members of FLAG, Scholtens noted. "Everybody can educate each other,", she said. "It's great to give advice for other artists. It keeps everyone pumped and going."

Photo: Laurie Allinson with her portrait of FLAG member Larry Green

Please visit Alumni, Founding Members

Fall Show at Cedar Rim Nursery
Members of the Fort Langley Artists Group staged their fall show in the naturally beautiful setting of Cedar Rim Nursery. In (2001), the artists are returned to Cedar Rim Nursery for a bigger event that treated visitors to a taste of all the good things Fort Langley and B.C. have to offer.

The Best of FLAG - Millenium Show December 17 2000 - January 21 2001
FLAG raises appreciation of art by Erin McKay, Langley Advance

(Photo: Artists on display: members of the Fort Langley Artists Group, including (left to right) Linda Muttitt, Susan Falk, Sharon Danhelka, and Larry Green, will be showing some of their best work in a Millenium show being staged at the Langley Centennial Museum.)

A looming deadline and a chance to be featured in a beautiful museum gallery motivated members of the Fort Langley Artists Group to create some of their best work.

As individuals, they are artists with unique visions, backgrounds, and styles.

As a group, they support, inspire, and educate each other.

They are members of the Fort Langley Artists Group, and until Jan. 21, their work can be seen in the Langley Centennial Museum and National Exhibition Centre at 9135 King St., in Fort Langley.

For members of the group, the chance to be seen in the museum was a thrilling prospect.

"The museum is such a wonderful venue," said FLAG artist Sharon Danhelka. "Everything shows so well."

It also gave members a chance to break away from the commercial work that is usually created for sale in art galleries, FLAG's Larry Green said, and allowed the artists to be more uninhibited and true to their craft.

"The things they love most about what they produce are more avant garde, more experimental, and more risk-taking," he said.

One of Green's works, for example, features sculptures of a head and hands. Visitors are encouraged to arrange the pieces, write down what the arrangement means to them, and photograph it.

"That's very important to me, that interaction," Green said.

The Best of FLAG show features paintings, sculpture, photography, pottery, and clothing made by the group's 18 members.

FLAG was originally formed by artist Barbara Boldt several years ago, and the membership has changed over time. The show is a chance for the new, modern FLAG to show its work, and proved to be a test of the members' ability to work to deadline.

It also proved how well they could work together as a unit.

"There was so much work going on behind the scenes. The team work was marvellous," said Danhelka. "We worked hard together to make a show we could be proud of."

Members of FLAG, who normally show their work in the CN train station in Fort Langley from April to September, made pieces specifically for the museum show, and the pressure produced some incredible pieces.

"It brought out the best in people," said Green. "They summoned up new stuff and it was their best."

The ability to bring out the best in each other is what artist Susan Falk enjoys most about belonging to FLAG.

"It gives me something I still need. It's the dedication of individual artists, their aspirations, their triumph and their tragedies, which are definitely shared," she laughed.

"Inspiration from each other: that is just such a huge thing," said painter Linda Muttitt, who is hoping others will be inspired by FLAG's show.

"I hope they go away with some strong sense of the group and its diversity and the strength of who we are," she said. "There is a powerful presence to the work that hasn't been felt before."

"I'd like them to stop and be silent and experience stillness, to know that the art was a stimulus for that stillness," Green said of those who see the exhibit.

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