The Steveston Grand Prix of Art is pulling into the pits and parking for at least the next year.
That’s according to its creator and organizer, Mark Glavina, owner of the Phoenix Art Workshop in the historic fishing village, who has run the painting competition for the past six years.
Glavina said the event — which gives artists who take part up three hours to complete their work in randomly assigned spot before it’s put on displayed and judged — requires a significant amount of time to organize and a small army of volunteers to put on. And he was hoping for the city to provide more support to help stage what he said is an event that is perfectly suited to Steveston’s picturesque waterfront.
“One of the reasons I started this event up is to celebrate the uniqueness of Steveston, which would, hopefully, make us less intent on tearing things down,” Glavina said.
Over each of the last four years, the event has attracted between 85 and 110 local artists. And with crowds of onlookers passing by the painting sites dotted around the waterfront, the grand prix was a good draw for the village.
He added in the past few years, there has been decreasing amounts of assistance from the city which, at one time, provided the dozens of pop-up tents the artists sheltered under to keep out of the weather — either unrelenting rain or sunshine on the day of the competition. The city also helped with securing sites along the waterfront to locate the artists.
Glavina said that in 2015, the city requested it be removed as a host partner and did not supply the needed tents.
A further blow was the decision by the Richmond Artists Guild, which supplied dozens of volunteers to help run the grand prix, that it was too much for its membership to undertake this year and required a hiatus.
However, the grand prix did get support from a variety of individual businesses in the village. But even that wasn’t enough to help save this year’s event.
Glavina had hoped the competition would have by now become more self-sustaining and not take up as much of his time to produce.
But the idea of a time-limited painting competition lives on elsewhere.
Two years ago, Glavina expanded the event to include Ladner. When it was held this past July 15, it had 85 artists and enjoys the support of the municipality which has agreed to a three-year run.
Other communities around B.C. have also shown interest in hosting the grand prix. Next summer, Glavina will be assisting the start-up of one in the Okanagan town of Summerland. And closer to home, he has been in talks with an organization representing merchants in Downtown Vancouver’s Gastown.
Reaction to the decision to not hold the event this year in Steveston has been one of widespread disappointment, Glavina said.
Meanwhile, the city contends it has not decreased its involvement in Grand Prix of Art and continues to support the concept and remains committed to working with Glavina.
“We understand that Mr. Glavina is tired of largely producing the event by himself with little assistance, which is certainly understandable,” said city spokesman Ted Townsend in an email to the News. “We appreciate the great efforts he has put into the event. He also said that he and the artist guild had discussed taking a year off organizing events.”
Staff were anticipating contributing tents, staff and volunteer time and marketing and promotions for the event before Glavina indicated he was not planning to stage the event this year, he added
Townsend said city staff have encouraged Glavina to either become a not-for-profit society or become affiliated with a not-for-profit arts group and apply for a City Arts and Culture Grant to help defray some of the costs.
