OLDS — An artistic tradition is being restarted in Olds, this time with a new name.
Battle of the Brushes, where artists complete paintings in competition with each other and the crowd votes for winners will be held March 25 at the Pomeroy Inn & Suites. Doors open at 6 p.m. The competition begins at 7 p.m.
Proceeds are going to the BGC Olds and Area (formerly known as the Boys and Girls Club of Olds and Area).
A similar event, called Art Battle, ran for years until it was sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, organizing committee chair Debbie Ohlhausen says.
She says the event can’t use that former name because it’s copyrighted, so they chose a new name.
Ohlhausen moved away from Olds a few years ago, but moved back.
She got the idea to restart the event this past summer now that COVID restrictions have been lifted and enlisted many of the people who were involved in its previous iteration.
“Since I moved back to Olds I thought it would be fun to try again, because Art Battle was always such a success,” Ohlhausen said during an interview with the Albertan.
“I contacted the other women that had been involved in years past and they went, ‘yeah, sure, let’s give it a try.’ And so here we are, Battle of the Brushes.”
Twelve artists will battle it out. They are: Diana Steer, Melany Sealy, Cindy Boffey, Kerstin Maxwell, Debbie McIvor, Patti Simoneau, Rhonda VanVlaanderen, Jim Brown, Carlie Marsh, Dax Stringer, Jaeme Redgwell, Didja Lambert and Clint Mason who will serve as a spare.
Town of Olds Mayor Judy Dahl is slated to open the event. Murray Elliott will be the MC.
“There’s three rounds of painting, six artists, and then the crowd votes. And then the next six artists paint and the top two from each round then face off," Ohlhausen said.
"It’s really exciting, it’s a lot of fun. The crowd gets to walk around and watch while they paint.”
Ohlhausen is very grateful that the Pomeroy Inn & Suites has made its ballroom available for the Battle of the Brushes.
BGC Olds and area youth and community outreach director Lauren MacMullen is thrilled that that organization was invited to be the recipient of proceeds raised during the event.
“We were lucky to be chosen this year to be able to get those proceeds and we have a lot of things coming up,” MacMullen said.
"We have a youth centre opening in town here, we’re opening a youth centre in Didsbury. We have different youth programming starting,” she said. “We have summer programs coming up. We have lots of things going on. We have lots of stuff going on. We just opened another child care location.
“We have lots of things going on so it was a great time for the proceeds to come in to the BGC of Olds and Area.”
