The Paint the Barn Red – The Barns of Mountain View County art and story project is coming along nicely, county council heard at its recent regularly scheduled meeting.
The project involves local artists creating portraits and stories of barns in the county that will be published in a book.
A delegation from the project updated council on May 1.
The mission of the project is to “preserve imagery and stories of barns in the county, to preserve history and educate about Alberta rural life, and to engage artists and barn owners.”
To date, more than 40 barn owners have been matched up with regional artists.
“We did random draws twice, both live on The Paint The Barn Red Facebook page, to match up artists with barns,” said committee members.
“First artists applied and submitted samples of their work. They were then numbered and a professional artist outside of the county made the choices.”
More than 50 barns have been assigned artists, with barns ranging from 1900 to 2017.
“Artists have begun to do their visits to photograph and draw their assigned barns. Everyone is very excited about ‘their’ barn, enjoying getting to know the barn owners and hearing the stories.”
Writers in the project will be interviewing barn owners about the details and history of the barns. The stories will be published beside the paintings of the barns.
The stories and paintings will tentatively be sent to the publisher by the summer of 2020.
Plans are to publish 640 books, with half going go schools in the county, local libraries, and one book each for participating artists and barn owners.
“As a not-for-profit legacy project, there is no intention of making money on the project. County museums will receive 320 books to sell and keep the revenue from if we are fully funded.”
Officials are looking for sponsors or donors for the project. They have also applied for a number of grants.
See more at Paint the Barn Red In MVC on Facebook.
