Okotoks Art Gallery shakes things up with livestreamed lottery draw

An Okotoks art program will be mixing things up with a live event today (Feb. 16).

The Art in the Hall program, which started in 2010, gives local artists an opportunity to have their work on display in various town buildings.

Gallery assistant at the Okotoks Art Gallery, Katrina Lougheed, says it's grown to include pretty much every major town facility.

"It's grown quite a lot over the years. It's an opportunity to show their work in buildings around town. So we started out with just one building at the municipal centre, and at the moment we're in five. We're at the municipal centre, the rec centre, the Centennial Arenas, the second floor of the Okotoks Library, and the Foothills Centennial Centre."

Two pieces from Tanya Mezina that were part of the most recent Art in the Hall rotation.

New art is rotated out every four to six months, but this time around, they're doing things a little bit differently.

The gallery has seen an increase in membership in the last few years, and with that, more artists have requested to be featured in the program.

Because of that. they're switching the selection process up.

"So, to try and keep it fair for everyone, we've decided to move to a lottery system. Everyone who was interested in being part of the draw has provided their name, and we're going to go on Facebook live and draw all of the artists for 2024," says Lougheed.

They'll be pulling 14 names, with 35 entries in the draw.

Lougheed says they'll have a special guest there as part of the draw.

"We're doing the draw here at the art gallery, and we have a special guest who will be pulling the names for us. His name is Bryan Faubert, he's the exhibiting artist at the art gallery at the moment."

The draw will be streamed live on the Okotoks Heritage & Culture at 2:30 p.m. today.