Downtown Ladysmith has been brightened with celebratory colours for the season.
Last week, the town unveiled new street banners by local artist Trisha Oldfield.
Each year the town choses a theme for that year’s street banner program. For 2024, the theme is ‘Ladysmith Celebrates.’ The banners signify the variety of festivals and public events that the community presents each year.
“I was happy to read that the theme of this year’s banner program art submission revolved around the festivals and events in Ladysmith,” said Oldfield in a press release. “Raising our daughter in Chemainus and Ladysmith, we have amazing memories of Arts on the Avenue, the Light Up Nights, the parades, music at Transfer Beach, and Pirate Days at the marina. It was fun to create a design that reflected the joy and happiness this town brings to the people who live here.”
The banner program is administered through the town’s parks, recreation and culture department with input from the department’s advisory committee and the public art banners selection committee. Ladysmith council approved the selection at a meeting Feb. 20.
The new banners consist of a pair for each lamp standard. Each banner complements the other so that the two side by side tell the story.
Oldfield enjoys working in many mediums. She is a professional graphic designer and commercial illustrator, an accomplished mixed media fine artist and now, she added, the newly hired mural restoration artist for Chemainus. She has been a member of the Arts Council of Ladysmith and District for 15 years and has shown her work at the Ladysmith Arts Gallery and the Waterfront Gallery as well as an exhibiting artist in several Arts on the Avenue festivals.
The banners that adorned downtown Ladysmith last year, designed by Karen Tchamourian, are now featured on the lamp standards along Transfer Beach Boulevard and the newly rebuilt portion of Fourth Avenue.
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