Public Aboriginal Art Walk from the Bill Reid Gallery

The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art is hosting the Public Aboriginal Art Walk throughout the city from June 17th until July 11th. This coincides with National Aboriginal Day this coming Monday, June 21st.

You can download the Art Walk kit for free online to start your walk anytime. Each sheet lists five pieces of public aboriginal art, their locations, their names, and a trivia question that you can answer by looking at the pieces.

Photo © Uncle Buddha on Flickr

There is a self-guided Art Walk sheet for downtown that will lead you to the Canada Line Station. If you would like to continue the walk, flip to the next sheet and the Art Walk has five pieces from the Olympic Village to Granville Island (where BIll Reid had his studio).

Photo credit: drowcliffe on Flickr

The third Art Walk sheet features five pieces at YVR: Vancouver International Airport. You can complete one of the walks or all three by using the Canada Line.

It’s a fantastic way to not only get out and walk about the city to discover the art, but to learn a bit more about the pieces you might see everyday.

Once you have visited each piece featured on the Art Walk’s self-guided tour sheets, you can return them to the Bill Reid Gallery by July 11th. If you filled in the correct answer to the trivia question for each, you will be entered to win a print by contemporary Haida artist, John Brent Bennett.

I had the chance to visit the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art for the first time the other day and I received a private tour from Dr Martine Reid. She shared personal stories about Bill, his pieces, and his passions. I will be following up with a seperate post about the Gallery on Monday.

In the meantime, you can follow the gallery on Twitter @BillReidGallery and use the tag #PAAW if you tweet about the walk.