Cathy English celebrated with museum art gallery

A new art gallery will showcase more of Revelstoke Museum and Archives’ extensive collection and celebrate the leadership of Cathy English, long-time museum curator. The Cathy English Gallery will capitalize on a rare opportunity of new space for the museum, created from the building of the museum’s access lift.

“We were left with a completely blank slate to do whatever we wanted with, and we came to the decision that it would be the perfect space for an art gallery,” Laura VanZant, assistant curator said. 

The new lift access used to be the men’s washroom on the second floor and renovations to the area created a small room with enough blank wall space to create a 2D-style exhibit.

“Turning it into an art space made the most sense in terms of keeping those accessibility standards, as well as being able to show off a part of our collection that isn’t really on display,” VanZant said. 

With hundreds of art pieces in the museum’s collection, including a notable amount of work by local watercolourist Sophie Atkinson, it’s been an ongoing project to find new wall space.

“We don’t want to gatekeep our collection,” VanZant said. “We want to share it with as many people as possible.” While space restrictions limit the new gallery to six to ten pieces at a time, she’s confident guests will get an idea of the scope of the collection.

It’s fitting that a new exhibit space capitalizing on the creation of the access lift will be named after English, the museum’s curator for over 40 years and one of the driving forces behind various changes to the museum.

“Building the collection, building the museum, making it what it is today, that was Cathy,” VanZant said, explaining that English helped curate the museum away from the “open storage” displays to the current exhibit-focused layout that highlights stories from Revelstoke’s past. 

Over the years, English’s focus has been on creating a museum that’s for all of Revelstoke’s community and stories, with numerous exhibits highlighting untold stories.

“We have worked so hard to be a trustworthy community institution,” VanZant said. “Everything we do, we do with our community in mind.”

She’s even willing to bet that art pieces soon to be showcased in the new gallery space are part of the museum’s collection because of Cathy and the trust she has earned over the years.

“It only makes sense to have a space in this museum that has her name on it and is dedicated to her, because she is in every single room,” VanZant said.

The museum will be working with a local artist in the coming months to create a ceiling mural for the Cathy English Gallery. No official opening date is currently set, but VanZant expects visitors to be exploring the new space before the end of the year.