The sound of loud mufflers will once again echo along First Avenue this summer at the 21st annual Ladysmith Show ’n’ Shine. The event will be featured on Saturday, Aug. 16 along First Avenue from Roberts Street to Warren Street. It is enthusiastically anticipated every year by everyone from car buffs to curious onlookers who’ve never even seen a ’57 Chevy and unsuspecting tourists.
“One of the unique things about our show; it’s original right down to the posters,” said event chair Bob Purslow.
It was the poster that brought volunteers together to present a $500 cheque to the artist who designed this year’s poster. Tired of having typical hot rod-style car show posters, the show volunteers approached the Ladysmith and District Arts Council to get involved. They decided to hold a contest to select the annual poster artwork and the folks at Tim Mitton Big O Tire stepped forward to sponsor the poster competition.
“For the past three years we’ve had really local posters done by local artists and it has made us unique,” Purslow said. “We’ve even had to replace posters as they go missing. We think folks are collecting them as they are so different.”
This year’s winning art for the poster, titled “My Ride” was created by Ladysmith artist Elaine Grodaes. The piece, one of nine submissions received, is a collage of various coloured stock papers, with a simplified image of a 1934 Ford coupe and finished with coloured pencil.
“It depicts the front view of the Ford cruising up a hill in Ladysmith with a view of the ocean in the background,” Grodaes said of her artwork.
“Our volunteers met and really scrutinized all the entries," Purslow said. “It took quite a while to get it down to two and it was a tie. We actually approached a lady from Victoria to give us her opinion and that is what decided the winner.”
Rahul Sandhu, one of the new owners of the Ladysmith Big O Tire location, said they are committed to continuing their sponsorship of the Show 'n' Shine.
“We are really happy to be able to keep being the sponsor of this part of the car show,” Sandhu said. “We have heard a lot about it, and many other great events the town has, and we are wanting to be a part of it.”
