Aylmer Arts Council: 60 years in the making

A tribute to the arts in Aylmer Part II

 

By Diane Groulx, Member of the Aylmer Arts Council

1964: After nine years of presenting art exhibits and festivals, the group of artists finally got their “artistic legs” as the Aylmer and District Arts Association.  This was done under the direction of the well-known portrait painter and teacher Robert Hyndman.  Until then, the Association was divided into six distinct groups for music, drama, painting, literature, dance and crafts. The groups had divided according to their art form. 

The Aylmer Arts Council kept visual arts, including “métiers d’art” in their fold. Research shows they practiced or showed their work in many places. Linda Foley writes, in the bilingual newsletter “Mine d’Art” (1997), that ... “due to the lack of a home base, churches, school boards and city facilities were all used as meeting places, exhibitions areas, art instructions and other events.” To name just a few – Galeries Aylmer, Town Hall, the John Egan house at the Monastery, Centre Aydelu (The Barn), Glenwood furniture “Dome”, Symmes Hotel, High Schools and many others.

1965: Fifty years prior, the Spring Art Festival was officially opened by A.Y. Jackson, one of Canada’s foremost painters of the Group of Seven.

The festival was part of week-long festivities, drama performances, outdoor painting classes  concerts, all well-documented by CBC and newspapers of the time, particularly  Aylmer’s own “Sunday Reporter”.

1967:  To celebrate the country’s 100th year of Confederation, the Aylmer and District Association held a Centennial Ball in the British Hotel under the patronage of the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Quebec Hughes Lapointe. The Aylmer Sunday Reporter described it as “marvelous and beautiful”.  Of note, during the same year, 1967, the Association looked for a permanent home, not only for its activities, but also to include a gallery of the members artworks, a museum and its archives. 

As auctions and fund-raising events began, the association also took the first steps to be recognised as a chartered non-profit art group with a new name of Aylmer-Lucerne Arts Council.  As a footnote, AAC never gave up the quest for a permanent home, as sub-committees wrote briefs and submissions to city officials and searched for other avenues, to no avail, likely due  to lack of support and funds.

Today, the AAC is 60 years old and remains homeless; it has just moved from its facilities on the 3rd floor in the Symmes Inn Museum;   the arrangement had been given to the AAC since early 2000 by the City of Gatineau.  The AAC archives and activities have now been moved to a city owned recreational building on Jean Chenier Street in Aylmer aptly named the new “AAC bunker”.