Artist Rosanne Bennett

Trading places.

Sometimes it pays to pack up and move. Artist Rosanne Bennett established herself in Vancouver as an exhibiting artist and a co-owner of both the Flower Factory and Columbia Street Studios, and bought and fixed up a heritage-style home east of Fraser Street with her husband Larry. But a recent move took her to Kelowna’s Westbank, where she is building her own home from the ground up (complete with a 12-foot ceiling in her artist studio) on the edge of her family’s Flying Horse Farm.

While transitioning between homes, Rosanne and Larry rented a former orchard and farmhouse. This piqued Rosanne’s interest in the history of the land and the area, specifically the Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR), a provincial land use zone designated in 1973 to preserve agricultural land for farming. From her visits to the Westbank Museum came her new series of work, titled The Farmer Trading Card Series, which consists of 4 x 6.5-inch images drawn using graphite, inspired by her surroundings: British Columbia landscapes, her parents’ farm, the orchard, Westbank, and the history of the farming that exists there, past and present. The images have been collected together with the intention of “creating a viable card game”, and will be completed this winter.

Photos by Angela Fama.

Categories:

Post Date:

November 13, 2014