Downtown Cornwall came to life on Friday, June 23 for Cornwall Art Walk, brought to us by Your Arts Council. The event ran from 4 to 9 pm, but people were out an hour before the event started and many didn’t head home until after 10. Many businesses along Pitt Street had their doors open and patios were busy.
As is tradition, Pitt Street was closed off from Second Street to the Cornwall Square. There was live music at Pommier Square and vendors and artists were set up until just before Montreal Road.
A Lil’ Pole Fitness and Sky Studios Fitness had poles and aerial hoops set up on the corner of Pitt and First for demonstrations (and encouraging community members to try). The popular Family Zone was back outside of the Historic SDG Jail including balloon creations by Amanda Brown, dancing, improve, and more.
Several artists were painting, drawing, and even tattooing live during the Art Walk. James Lapierre was portrait painting, Shawn Thompson was drawing the downtown scenery, and Neil Carriere was doing live caricatures (to name a few). Yafa Arts and Crafts was present and people were dancing in the street.
Carol-Ann Breedyk was present with her Art Provoking Conversation Piece, inspired by the finding of 215 children found buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, among other artworks.
“After the findings in Kamloops, I just … felt such sadness and sorrow and shame and compassion for the community for what they’ve been through. We can’t even imagine,” shared Breedyk, “I struggle with the lack of justice; I think a lot of Canadians do and you don’t really know what to do or how to help. This is me just putting it all on canvas. You see my anger and you see the embarrassment. It was really just a bit of an emotional passion project.”
Cornwall Art Walk took to Facebook the next day to extend their heartfelt gratitude to all those who contributed to making this year’s event a success.
