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Artist finds sense of community

‘This place is just so inviting and welcoming, more than any other place I’ve lived’

KATHY JOHNSON TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD kathy.johnson @saltwire.com

For years Kim Smerek's friends who live in Halifax told her she needed to check out Nova Scotia.

The multi-faceted artist had lived in various locations across Canada in her lifetime, as well as spending 10 years in a mountain top community in Arizona.

In 2020, Smerek decided to heed her friends' advice and started looking at real estate in Nova Scotia and what was available everywhere else.

“I bought an old house in Port Clyde. I'm fixing it up. I've got a bed and breakfast that is full for the summer and a big studio there. It's awesome,” says Smerek.

More than just a painter, Smerek is also an illustrator creating commissioned work for clients for promotional and marketing purposes. She also writes and illustrates children's books, makes children's educational toys, and has a background working with interior designers, painting murals, and working for North America's largest theatre fabrication company creating backdrops and painting props.

Smerek became involved with the Shelburne County Arts Council last year, exhibiting some of her work, which caught the eye of Amanda Pedro, who curates the gallery at the Boxing Rock Brewing Company taproom. This led to an invitation for a solo show, which will be exhibited until August.

“We always have a show up,” says Emily Tipton, cofounder of the Boxing Rock Brewing Company. “It's always a local artist featured. It rotates so it's always different styles. We really appreciate having something else for our customers to enjoy while they are here, especially now that we have tourists back. There's not a lot of places here that people can access the art vendors and there is a lot of art in the community.”

Tipton says Boxing Rock “really wants to be a place about not only beer but about Shelburne."

"So, however we can do both things that's what we to do," she says. "Every opportunity we have to showcase other parts of the community like the Back to Birchtown beer – if we can have a partnership that benefits us both, why wouldn't we do that?”

Among the offerings at the brewing company's taproom is a community flight of four beers that are paired with four different places in the community recommended to visit including the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre, Islands Provincial Park, The Dory Shop and Sandy Point Lighthouse.

“Usually, we do get a lot of visitors to this space and we want to share as much of the community as we can with them,” says Tipton. “We encourage them to go out and explore the community.”

Smerek is appreciative that the exhibit space exists. “You guys are like the biggest art supporters in town,” she tells Tipton. “This is great local community hub.”

While Smerek will be concentrating

on operating her bed and breakfast Studio 181 for the summer, in the fall she has been asked to teach art classes at the Osprey Arts Center, something she would like to do.

“I can have up to six people in my studio but at the Osprey we can have a lot more community, more adult classes more children. I'm also hoping to be in the schools this fall doing some residencies and that sort of thing,” she says.

“This place is just so inviting and welcoming, more than any other place I've lived," she adds. "It's pretty awesome.”

TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD

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2022-06-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-06-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281663963696320

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