Skip to content

Capturing Mennie sides of the region

Well-loved artist is downsizing and selling off the majority of her artwork this weekend
7284parksvilleWEBOliviaArtSale-LA-July24
Olivia Mennie is hosting a studio and garden sale for a large number of her paintings and sketches Aug. 2 and 3.

LISSA ALEXANDER

reporter@pqbnews.com

A well-respected and award-winning Parksville artist is moving and downsizing so she’ll be selling off a large portion of her paintings and sketches this weekend.

Olivia Mennie is hosting an open studio art sale both inside and throughout her large garden on Saturday, August 2 and Sunday, August 3 at her home at 140 Butler Avenue in Parksville.

Mennie has been a significant part of the local art scene for 24 years. What is now the gift shop at The Old School House Arts Centre was once her studio.

She’s been involved with the Oceanside Community Arts Council for years, she was an art teacher in painting and clay at the Rogue's Gallery in Parksville, she has taught life drawing lessons extensively in the area and she’s won a number of juried shows for her paintings, including from the Federation of Canadian Artists, Arrowmsmith Chapter.

Mennie has always loved to paint and at 15 she won a scholarship in her home country of England to the Sheffield College of Art which she attended for five years. She continued her painting when the family moved to Montreal in 1966 where she furthered her studies at the museum of fine arts and was mentored by Arthur Lismer.

When the family moved to Burlington, Ontario, Mennie was a founding member of the Burlington Art Centre and an art teacher in that city for 28 years.

Today Mennie is a member of the DeCosmos Fine Arts Society, a member of the Grandmothers to Grandmothers, she’s involved with the OCAC and was a founding member of the Arrowsmith Chapter of the FCA.

Mennie has always been fascinated with life drawing and she is selling off pages of her charcoal sketches unframed (from as little as $20) as well as her pastel paintings: portraits (including zentangle portraits), landscape scenes and animals.

Her daughter Alison Burfoot is also an artist as well as her grand daugther, Arden, and both will have art for sale at the event.

 

The studio and garden sale will take place from 11 to 3 p.m. Aug. 2 and 3.