Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 artists and acts to check out at Arts in the Garden 2024
North Van Arts’ annual outdoor event brings visual artists, musicians, and performers to 10 resplendent outdoor spaces
Work by Denny Provost.
North Van Arts presents Arts in the Garden 2024 on May 25 and 26 at 10 outdoor spaces across North Vancouver and West Vancouver
ALL THE OUTDOOR world’s a stage at North Van Arts’ upcoming Arts in the Garden 2024. The annual community event sees visual artists, musicians, and performers doing their thing in 10 gardens throughout North Vancouver and West Vancouver. It’s all to celebrate the intersection of artistic practices and the natural environment.
Each garden has a $5 cash entry fee, with four gardens charging admission by donation. An all-access garden pass is available for $35. Garden 10—Feathers and Fungi is unique in that it offers day-long programming, culminating in a community parade along the forested trails of Maplewood Flats.
Here are five artists and acts to catch in beautiful spaces over the weekend.
Denny Provost, Dabbling With Denny, at Garden 2—Uplifting (pictured at top)
Denny Provost is a Métis artist who is colour blind. He has been drawing, building, and creating since he was a child, finding solace in art. Having spent three years studying fine arts at the University of Windsor, he’s now based on Vancouver Island, working for the Nanaimo Art Gallery as an artist in schools. He hosts painting classes in Nanaimo and on Protection Island, where he has mounted numerous historical murals. His style is clean, bold, and colourful, and often involves the use of masking tape.
Provost will be at Garden 2—Uplifting, which is Swáy̓wi Temíxw, West Vancouver Memorial Library’s Community Demonstration Garden, known for its sustainable and regenerative gardening practices. The space includes a food garden, native plant food forest, bat garden, pollinator gardens, Mason bee hotel, bat boxes, composting, rainwater harvesting, and an accessible garden box.
Work by Bethany Pardoe.
Bethany Pardoe at Garden 5—Ethereal
Originally from Nelson, B.C., visual artist Bethany Pardoe attended Emily Carr University of Art and Design and is now an active member of the local art community. She has participated in events such as BC Culture Days, exhibited paintings at venues such as POMO Arts, and won a handful of scholarships, including the BCAC Scholarship in 2023. She is currently developing her first hand-drawn graphic novel. She’ll be doing a painting demonstration at Garden 5—Ethereal. Gardener Susan Bath has spent nearly three decades creating the oasis, which is abundant in plants, trees, chandeliers, and found objects.
Harmeet Kaur Virdee.
Harmeet Kaur Duo at Garden 7—Calm
Harmeet Kaur Virdee is a jazz double bassist and composer based in Surrey who has performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Odlum Brown Fort Langley Jazz Festival, VSO Day of Music, Surrey Tree Lighting Festival, and the Vancouver Christmas Market. The founder and organizer of Surrey Jazz Nights, she teaches at the VSO School of Music and Queen’s Academy of the Arts.
Joining Virdee for performances both days from 1:30 to 3:30 pm is tenor saxophonist Natalie Varnals. The two will perform a wide-ranging selection of jazz standards as well as original compositions. They’ll be playing at Garden 7—Calm, which is at the North Shore Hospice and stewarded by a volunteer group of master gardeners from Van Dusen Botanical Garden. It has seating areas, umbrella tables, and a weather awning that rolls out over the patio.
Work by Sarah Rosenbloom.
Sarah Rosenbloom at Garden 8—Energetic
Sarah Rosenbloom will deliver a painting presentation called The Intuitive Process with a Neo-Expressionistic Outlook on The Ongoing Harms of Colonialism. The 25-year-old visual artist is of Trinidadian and Jewish descent, whose work is based in the philosophy of social justice and consciousness. With a psychedelic and neo-expressionistic style, she explores her own personal relationship to the ongoing harms of colonization. She has completed several advanced training courses at the Ottawa School of Art and founded the University of British Columbia’s painting club.
She’ll be on-site at Garden 8—Energetic at Loutet Farm, the first urban farm on public parkland in Canada, and Gerry’s Garden. The latter is a former derelict half-acre space adjacent to Brooksbank Elementary School and Loutet Park, that Gerry MacPherson turned into a beautiful green garden over a decade ago after the loss of his son. A farmer’s market takes place at Loutet Farm on May 25.
Allison Burns Joseph.
Allison Burns Joseph at Garden 9—Warm
Allison Burns Joseph connects to her Squamish culture through her work. At Arts in the Garden, she’ll be doing a Coast Salish wool-weaving demonstration. She also works with beads to create pendants and earrings, and will be sharing some of her sister Jacqueline’s salves and bath soaks. She’ll be at Garden 9—Warm, which is tended by Ahbyah Baker and features, among other attractions, three distinct areas in the back: a poolside retreat, a main garden, and a shade garden adorned with an array of native species. 
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