After roughly 40 years being a member of the Westlock Community Art Club, Marlaine Byvank was awarded a lifetime membership last week.
She joined the club in the mid-1970s and has been an active member ever since.
“You always have to have people who will volunteer for everything and when you say you need something done, Marlaine is there,” said club president Guy Gokiert.
Byvank said she joined the club after years of drawing, but was encouraged to become a member by her mother-in-law.
“She’s an artist too and she thought, maybe I should do something with my life I guess other than raise children, so she introduced me to the club,” she said.
Since joining the club, Byvank said she has grown a lot as an artist because of the other members she was able to interact with.
“We learn a lot from the people next to us,” she said, adding their criticisms also helped push her to be a better artist. “You have to learn to take criticism as an artist — it’s really wearing your heart on your sleeve.”
Both Byvank and Gokiert agree the art community has changed and the styles have evolved and transformed into something far superior to what it was in the 1970s.
“Styles have changed and it’s quite interesting to me to see the different style from when I started,” she said, adding when she began with the club the focus was on drawing, design and colour theory.
Gokiert said now people are experimenting with all sorts of things with encaustic wax and scratchboard art.
The Westlock Community Art Club has been operating for at least 50 years and between eight and 10 lifetime memberships have been handed out to club members, Gokiert said.
For Byvank, she said she hopes to continue being an active member for years to come because the club plays a vital role in not only her life, but the community as well.
“I think what was kind of important to me all through the years is the mandate of the club and that was to encourage and introduce art to the community,” she said. “I think that’s a very important aspect of the club.”
