Art Helps – OV-CAOS Ottawa Valley Community Arts

Funder: Ontario Trillium Foundation

Artist Facilitators: Andy Trull, Tanya Lyons, Genevieve Townsend, Anna Camilleri, MJ Lévesque, Megan Spencer, Christine Luckasavitch, Jenny Croft, Tristan Whiston.

Dates: May 2024 – July 2025

About the Project

Art Helps is a workshop series based around the goal of improving our mental health, reducing loneliness and connecting with nature. Each workshop focuses on a different material, and is hosted by a specialized artist facilitator. Materials have included, wood, glass, water, plants, stone, clay, animal fibre and sound.

Art Helps is a response to the elevated need for community art programming, offering programs that create a connection between people and the natural world, and exploring our creativity in community.

This project also makes space for OV-CAOS staff and artist facilitators to gather and be creatively independently of their creative working time. Encouraging creative play and reducing burnout.

Credits

Ottawa Valley Community Arts Co-Artistic Directors: Andy Trull & Anya Gansterer Artist Facilitators: Andy Trull, Tanya Lyons, Genevieve Townsend, Anna Camilleri, MJ Lévesque, Megan Spencer, Christine Luckasavitch, Jenny Croft, Tristan Whiston.

A group learns to wood burn in an outdoor structure

A group gathers around a tree while an instructor speaks.

Hands place plants on watercolour paper.

Plants and clay laid out with documents on a table.

A presenter speaks to a seated group beside a lake.

Stones with string and sticks woven across them.

Large and small stones laid out in a pattern.

A design for a needle felted birth with raw wool.

Photo credits: Maureen MacMillan, Anya Gansterer, Megan Spencer