THANK YOU!!
Although this project started out in one mind, it took MANY minds (and hands) to make this dream a reality. Thank you to every person who took an interest... great or small... in the project.
The Alberta Flood Rose Project was run entirely by volunteers, many (if not all!) of us who had never done anything of this magnitude before. There were many lessons learned along the way, and if we should ever attempt something like this again, we would likely do many things differently. That said, it was an absolute delight meeting all the wonderful artists and donors who so generously gave of their time, skills, and talent to help us achieve our goals.
Here is, in roughly chronological order, the list of people, places and businesses that helped the project along the way:
THE ARTISTS
Your beautiful artwork and the spirit in which it was created was the backbone of this project. Without your generous, immediate and excited support (of your art donations as well as your DAILY words of encouragement!), there would have been no Collections at all. You are an amazing group of creative souls. May the beauty of what you have given here be in your hearts forever!
TEAM OF DIRECTORS
Terri Heinrichs - Coordinator - It has been an honor and a privilege to work together with and meet you all, and gather together the collective energy of the visual artists of the Calgary area to create this project and send our support on to the victims of the 2013 flood.
Lisa Roos - Social Media Guru & the Other Half of my Brain - Lisa, my dear Lisa!! Me. You. WE. I cannot say enough good things about you! Your UNENDING POSITIVE SUPPORT and ideas and energy quite literally kept me going for the past two months. Your wisdom and honesty and creative genius was so critical to the success of this project. Thank you for your time, your support, your ideas, your SOLUTIONS, and your wit.
Kevin Gobelman - Financial Wizard/August Tour Scheduler - Kevin, your knowledge, experience, and calm, cool spirit was an absolute LIFESAVER. Thank you for your ideas, your humor, your communication skills, and for sharing patiently your financial expertise with us.
Geri Timmins - Volunteer Coordinator - Geri, your kind, personable and skillful assistance absolutely saved the day! Thank you for stepping in at the last minute to work with our team. I know we worked you HARD in the week before the auction, but you absolutely shone!! Your kind heart and willingness to help was appreciated SO much!
Thank you also to Magz Ross, who ingeniously created the bags for protecting our precious artwork, and began helping us coordinate volunteers and look for sponsors. She also had the forethought to snap pictures of the collections before the glass went on so we could print the cards!
ART COLLECTION LOCATIONS
The following businesses generously agreed to be drop-off locations for the artists to bring their artwork to, which allowed us to collect all the pieces in an orderly and timely fashion:
Bluerock Gallery (Black Diamond) - Thank you, Karen, for your immediate support and ongoing encouragement!
Cactus Arts (Calgary School of Art) - Thank you Kathy (and Lisa) for your kind generosity and for letting us use your rooms for the many days of assembly! Your willingness to work with what we needed as well as your support (space, food, supplies and smiles!) meant so much to us.
Kensington Art Supplies - Thank you Annette (and team) for your interest in the project, your personal assistance with assembly as well as your generous donation of art supplies for the celebrity artists at our auction!
Mona Lisa Artist's Materials - Thank you Jennifer for collecting artwork for us!
Swinton's Art Supply - Thank you Doug (and team) for your interest in the project, and for kindly donating 4"x4" boards for artists to use when the city ran out of 4"x4" canvases! :) Also thank you for your other kind offers of support!
PHOTOGRAPHY
Thank you to Veronica Funk for kindly accepting all the artists' photographs of their work to place on our website gallery. This saved me hundreds of emails, and created an immediate impact as people now had a visual to associate with the project.
Thank you to Deborah Catton and Barb Fedun for patiently photographing every single piece of artwork that came in for the project. Their photos are what we used to create the book, and were MUCH appreciated!!
Thank you also to Brian Mitchell for donating his time to take pictures for us at the auction. His dedication to helping us record our event was much appreciated!
ASSEMBLY TEAM
The following people all had a hand in helping to unwrap, sort, organize, label, arrange, fix and assemble the final Collections at Cactus Arts. For THREE DAYS. This process took us FAR longer than we anticipated, and every moment of assistance was appreciated! Coffee breaks were fun (because there was so much good FOOD!!), there was much chatting and laughing, and even some can-can dancing. :) It was a pleasure working with each one of you!
Laurie Aldridge
Sue Van Dyck Bussoli
Diane Kinahan
Linda Le Geyt - also, Linda, thank you for your beautiful, inspiring article!
Carol Little - thanks for getting us organized, Carol!
Annette Ressler
Jenny Stables
Annette Wichmann
Sharon Wotherspoon
PRINTING AND PREPARATION TEAM
A huge part of our fundraising is being done through the sales of our books, art cards and the fine art print. A VAST amount of work went into the creation of these items, particularly the book. As we were under a strict deadline, please forgive any errors... we really did try our best to make sure all the information was correct!
Kathy Lycka - Thank you, Kathy for the initial offer to set up the book layout, and for connecting us with Emerson-Clarke, who did the beautiful printing of our little book. The book was a huge hit!
Winter Photographics - Thanks Jennifer, for your kind offer to donate your time and expertise to create and print the art cards for us. They're selling like hotcakes!
Glen Collin - Glen... your amazing dedication to helping us process the photos for the book, as well as your creation and printing of the fine art print was a HUGE help. Thank you for your kind spirit and helpful, solution-finding ideas! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into this project!
Edith VanderKloot - Edith, you sweet lady! Thank you for your tireless assistance in processing the hundreds of photos for the project. It is only with your help that we were able to make our deadline! Your work was precise and beautifully done!
Freyja Ulveland - Freyja, your generous donation of time and skills in setting up the layout for the book were SO important and appreciated!! Your knowledge and ability to create shortcuts for getting us to print on time were priceless. I'd stay up working, and eating East Indian food with you, until 2 in the morning anytime! :) (Freyja continued working ALL NIGHT that night so we could get our book to the printers on time). Also, thank you for your last-minute work getting the PowerPoint images to us at the auction, and for delivering the cupcakes as well!!
FRAMING TEAM
Thank you to the following framers who donated their time, materials and services to help us highlight our artwork, both in the large Collections, and in the smaller collections for the silent auction:
Framed on Fifth - Special thanks to Hannah White for organizing and arranging the large frames, and for generously donating the framing for Arlene's special art piece.
Atlantis Framing
Bluerock Gallery
Cimarron Framing
Impact Picture Framing
Larson Juhl
Thank you also to the team of framers who got together to frame up the large collection pieces on the August long weekend, in order to get them ready for their August tour!!
AUGUST TOUR
Having our collection pieces travel around to public locations in August took quite a lot of work. Thank you to Kevin Gobelman for organizing the locations as well as the volunteers to help move the pieces. Thank you also to Connie Christensen and Sheila Schaetzle for helping plan the tour locations!
Thank you to the following locations for hosting us while on our tour:
Just Imajan Gallery - special thanks to Janet B. Armstrong and Carmen Miller who hosted our "Tour Launch Party" at the Just Imajan Gallery in Cochrane with much thought and class!! It was a highlight for me to have such a lovely evening of art, flowers and treats to celebrate the start of the tour of our Collections!
Calgary Winter Club
Glencoe Club
Bluerock Gallery
TransCanada Place
The Ranchmen's Club - Special thanks to Dave Houghton (GM) for his interest and support in the project! And thanks to the Ranchmen's Club for including us in their Summer Tea. It was a delightful afternoon of tea and roses!!
Galleria Inglewood
Thank you also to the following people, who all helped out with set-up, take-down, and carefully transporting the pieces from place to place. Your work was MUCH appreciated!!
Karen Biko - HUGE thank you to Karen, for transporting the grid walls every single trip. She and I single-handedly moved the collection and the grid walls several times. And got rather good at it... if we do say so ourselves. :) "The art is nice, but look at that GRID FORMATION!!"
Sue Van Dyck Bussoli
Kevin Gobelman
Diane Kinahan
Alison Philpotts
Sherri Sheils
Sharon Wotherspoon
MEDIA
Thank you SO much to all the members of the media who came out to help us promote our project. Your coverage was timely and so professionally done. We sincerely appreciate your interest in the project! Please see our "News" page for more details.
Thank you also to Dixie Edge for your excellent communication skills and assistance in contacting the media. HUGE help!!
NAMETAGS
The Tributes Group very generously created and donated the beautiful silver artist's nametags for the auction. Thank you, Neil, for your professional assistance and for this lovely gift that we could give to the artists.
VENUE & AUDIO/VISUAL
Thank you to Caroline Seymour and the team at the Hotel Arts for working with us so patiently to bring together the fantastic venue where we could hold our final celebration. There were many compliments on the food and setting. It was lovely!
Thank you also to Vance Pon from PSAV who provided us with the audio/visual/technical services for the evening, and created the lovely lighting to highlight our artwork.
EVENT PLANNER
Special thanks to Niki Hejtmanek, for stepping in to be our woman-in-charge on the evening of the auction. It was SO good to know you were there to keep the evening running smoothly. Thanks Niki!!
MUSIC
The fantastically professional string quartet who played for us at the auction is Allegra. Thank you so much to Diane for bringing the group together to create such a beautiful, classy ambiance at the auction!
EMCEE
Special thanks to Chester Lees for sharing her rich, exciting voice to the evening as our emcee. With a VERY short time to prepare, she graciously and professionally stepped in to liven up the room with her wit and charm.
AUCTIONEER
HUGE thanks to Doug Levis of Levis Auctions, who so kindly and deftly stepped in to assist us with auctioning our artwork when we were disappointingly left without an auctioneer the day before the event. I cannot say enough about how kind and generous Doug was to help us out in this way!!
CELEBRITY PAINTERS
Thank you kindly to our exciting celebrities who joined us as "honorary painters" for the evening of our auction. Thank you all for coming to celebrate with us, for your artwork and extra goodies!!
For more information on these budding artists, please see our "Celebrities" page.
Chef Michael Allemeier
Jamie Gregg
Michelle Minke
Pete the Plumber
Gwendolyn Richards
Chef Liana Robberecht
Chef Chris Shaften
Danielle Smith
Chef Kendra Smith
Gilmore Junio
Danielle Wotherspoon
Thanks also to Mark's Work Warehouse for donating the painting smocks (men's shirts) for our celebrities.
CUPCAKES
Special thanks to Chef Liana Robberecht and her team for creating the magnificent cupcakes we enjoyed at the auction. I managed to sneak two of them home and enjoyed them for two extra days! :)
AGENDA CALLIGRAPHY
The beautiful Agenda signs at our auction were hand-created by Renate Worthington, who kindly shared her calligraphic talents with us not only in creating her art piece, but also in creating these signs. Thank you, Renate!
VOLUNTEERS
There were MANY volunteers who helped out at the auction in registration and at the book sales table, as well as with the silent auction and various other things that needed doing that night. Thank you ALL for helping us make the auction such a fun night!
ALBERTA SOCIETY OF ARTISTS - TREX PROGRAM
Thank you to Caroline Loewen for working with us on behalf of the ASA TREX program to take our Collection pieces on tour from September to March. We're thrilled that our work will be able to be shared with the province of Alberta in this way!
The Alberta Flood Rose Project was run entirely by volunteers, many (if not all!) of us who had never done anything of this magnitude before. There were many lessons learned along the way, and if we should ever attempt something like this again, we would likely do many things differently. That said, it was an absolute delight meeting all the wonderful artists and donors who so generously gave of their time, skills, and talent to help us achieve our goals.
Here is, in roughly chronological order, the list of people, places and businesses that helped the project along the way:
THE ARTISTS
Your beautiful artwork and the spirit in which it was created was the backbone of this project. Without your generous, immediate and excited support (of your art donations as well as your DAILY words of encouragement!), there would have been no Collections at all. You are an amazing group of creative souls. May the beauty of what you have given here be in your hearts forever!
TEAM OF DIRECTORS
Terri Heinrichs - Coordinator - It has been an honor and a privilege to work together with and meet you all, and gather together the collective energy of the visual artists of the Calgary area to create this project and send our support on to the victims of the 2013 flood.
Lisa Roos - Social Media Guru & the Other Half of my Brain - Lisa, my dear Lisa!! Me. You. WE. I cannot say enough good things about you! Your UNENDING POSITIVE SUPPORT and ideas and energy quite literally kept me going for the past two months. Your wisdom and honesty and creative genius was so critical to the success of this project. Thank you for your time, your support, your ideas, your SOLUTIONS, and your wit.
Kevin Gobelman - Financial Wizard/August Tour Scheduler - Kevin, your knowledge, experience, and calm, cool spirit was an absolute LIFESAVER. Thank you for your ideas, your humor, your communication skills, and for sharing patiently your financial expertise with us.
Geri Timmins - Volunteer Coordinator - Geri, your kind, personable and skillful assistance absolutely saved the day! Thank you for stepping in at the last minute to work with our team. I know we worked you HARD in the week before the auction, but you absolutely shone!! Your kind heart and willingness to help was appreciated SO much!
Thank you also to Magz Ross, who ingeniously created the bags for protecting our precious artwork, and began helping us coordinate volunteers and look for sponsors. She also had the forethought to snap pictures of the collections before the glass went on so we could print the cards!
ART COLLECTION LOCATIONS
The following businesses generously agreed to be drop-off locations for the artists to bring their artwork to, which allowed us to collect all the pieces in an orderly and timely fashion:
Bluerock Gallery (Black Diamond) - Thank you, Karen, for your immediate support and ongoing encouragement!
Cactus Arts (Calgary School of Art) - Thank you Kathy (and Lisa) for your kind generosity and for letting us use your rooms for the many days of assembly! Your willingness to work with what we needed as well as your support (space, food, supplies and smiles!) meant so much to us.
Kensington Art Supplies - Thank you Annette (and team) for your interest in the project, your personal assistance with assembly as well as your generous donation of art supplies for the celebrity artists at our auction!
Mona Lisa Artist's Materials - Thank you Jennifer for collecting artwork for us!
Swinton's Art Supply - Thank you Doug (and team) for your interest in the project, and for kindly donating 4"x4" boards for artists to use when the city ran out of 4"x4" canvases! :) Also thank you for your other kind offers of support!
PHOTOGRAPHY
Thank you to Veronica Funk for kindly accepting all the artists' photographs of their work to place on our website gallery. This saved me hundreds of emails, and created an immediate impact as people now had a visual to associate with the project.
Thank you to Deborah Catton and Barb Fedun for patiently photographing every single piece of artwork that came in for the project. Their photos are what we used to create the book, and were MUCH appreciated!!
Thank you also to Brian Mitchell for donating his time to take pictures for us at the auction. His dedication to helping us record our event was much appreciated!
ASSEMBLY TEAM
The following people all had a hand in helping to unwrap, sort, organize, label, arrange, fix and assemble the final Collections at Cactus Arts. For THREE DAYS. This process took us FAR longer than we anticipated, and every moment of assistance was appreciated! Coffee breaks were fun (because there was so much good FOOD!!), there was much chatting and laughing, and even some can-can dancing. :) It was a pleasure working with each one of you!
Laurie Aldridge
Sue Van Dyck Bussoli
Diane Kinahan
Linda Le Geyt - also, Linda, thank you for your beautiful, inspiring article!
Carol Little - thanks for getting us organized, Carol!
Annette Ressler
Jenny Stables
Annette Wichmann
Sharon Wotherspoon
PRINTING AND PREPARATION TEAM
A huge part of our fundraising is being done through the sales of our books, art cards and the fine art print. A VAST amount of work went into the creation of these items, particularly the book. As we were under a strict deadline, please forgive any errors... we really did try our best to make sure all the information was correct!
Kathy Lycka - Thank you, Kathy for the initial offer to set up the book layout, and for connecting us with Emerson-Clarke, who did the beautiful printing of our little book. The book was a huge hit!
Winter Photographics - Thanks Jennifer, for your kind offer to donate your time and expertise to create and print the art cards for us. They're selling like hotcakes!
Glen Collin - Glen... your amazing dedication to helping us process the photos for the book, as well as your creation and printing of the fine art print was a HUGE help. Thank you for your kind spirit and helpful, solution-finding ideas! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into this project!
Edith VanderKloot - Edith, you sweet lady! Thank you for your tireless assistance in processing the hundreds of photos for the project. It is only with your help that we were able to make our deadline! Your work was precise and beautifully done!
Freyja Ulveland - Freyja, your generous donation of time and skills in setting up the layout for the book were SO important and appreciated!! Your knowledge and ability to create shortcuts for getting us to print on time were priceless. I'd stay up working, and eating East Indian food with you, until 2 in the morning anytime! :) (Freyja continued working ALL NIGHT that night so we could get our book to the printers on time). Also, thank you for your last-minute work getting the PowerPoint images to us at the auction, and for delivering the cupcakes as well!!
FRAMING TEAM
Thank you to the following framers who donated their time, materials and services to help us highlight our artwork, both in the large Collections, and in the smaller collections for the silent auction:
Framed on Fifth - Special thanks to Hannah White for organizing and arranging the large frames, and for generously donating the framing for Arlene's special art piece.
Atlantis Framing
Bluerock Gallery
Cimarron Framing
Impact Picture Framing
Larson Juhl
Thank you also to the team of framers who got together to frame up the large collection pieces on the August long weekend, in order to get them ready for their August tour!!
AUGUST TOUR
Having our collection pieces travel around to public locations in August took quite a lot of work. Thank you to Kevin Gobelman for organizing the locations as well as the volunteers to help move the pieces. Thank you also to Connie Christensen and Sheila Schaetzle for helping plan the tour locations!
Thank you to the following locations for hosting us while on our tour:
Just Imajan Gallery - special thanks to Janet B. Armstrong and Carmen Miller who hosted our "Tour Launch Party" at the Just Imajan Gallery in Cochrane with much thought and class!! It was a highlight for me to have such a lovely evening of art, flowers and treats to celebrate the start of the tour of our Collections!
Calgary Winter Club
Glencoe Club
Bluerock Gallery
TransCanada Place
The Ranchmen's Club - Special thanks to Dave Houghton (GM) for his interest and support in the project! And thanks to the Ranchmen's Club for including us in their Summer Tea. It was a delightful afternoon of tea and roses!!
Galleria Inglewood
Thank you also to the following people, who all helped out with set-up, take-down, and carefully transporting the pieces from place to place. Your work was MUCH appreciated!!
Karen Biko - HUGE thank you to Karen, for transporting the grid walls every single trip. She and I single-handedly moved the collection and the grid walls several times. And got rather good at it... if we do say so ourselves. :) "The art is nice, but look at that GRID FORMATION!!"
Sue Van Dyck Bussoli
Kevin Gobelman
Diane Kinahan
Alison Philpotts
Sherri Sheils
Sharon Wotherspoon
MEDIA
Thank you SO much to all the members of the media who came out to help us promote our project. Your coverage was timely and so professionally done. We sincerely appreciate your interest in the project! Please see our "News" page for more details.
Thank you also to Dixie Edge for your excellent communication skills and assistance in contacting the media. HUGE help!!
NAMETAGS
The Tributes Group very generously created and donated the beautiful silver artist's nametags for the auction. Thank you, Neil, for your professional assistance and for this lovely gift that we could give to the artists.
VENUE & AUDIO/VISUAL
Thank you to Caroline Seymour and the team at the Hotel Arts for working with us so patiently to bring together the fantastic venue where we could hold our final celebration. There were many compliments on the food and setting. It was lovely!
Thank you also to Vance Pon from PSAV who provided us with the audio/visual/technical services for the evening, and created the lovely lighting to highlight our artwork.
EVENT PLANNER
Special thanks to Niki Hejtmanek, for stepping in to be our woman-in-charge on the evening of the auction. It was SO good to know you were there to keep the evening running smoothly. Thanks Niki!!
MUSIC
The fantastically professional string quartet who played for us at the auction is Allegra. Thank you so much to Diane for bringing the group together to create such a beautiful, classy ambiance at the auction!
EMCEE
Special thanks to Chester Lees for sharing her rich, exciting voice to the evening as our emcee. With a VERY short time to prepare, she graciously and professionally stepped in to liven up the room with her wit and charm.
AUCTIONEER
HUGE thanks to Doug Levis of Levis Auctions, who so kindly and deftly stepped in to assist us with auctioning our artwork when we were disappointingly left without an auctioneer the day before the event. I cannot say enough about how kind and generous Doug was to help us out in this way!!
CELEBRITY PAINTERS
Thank you kindly to our exciting celebrities who joined us as "honorary painters" for the evening of our auction. Thank you all for coming to celebrate with us, for your artwork and extra goodies!!
For more information on these budding artists, please see our "Celebrities" page.
Chef Michael Allemeier
Jamie Gregg
Michelle Minke
Pete the Plumber
Gwendolyn Richards
Chef Liana Robberecht
Chef Chris Shaften
Danielle Smith
Chef Kendra Smith
Gilmore Junio
Danielle Wotherspoon
Thanks also to Mark's Work Warehouse for donating the painting smocks (men's shirts) for our celebrities.
CUPCAKES
Special thanks to Chef Liana Robberecht and her team for creating the magnificent cupcakes we enjoyed at the auction. I managed to sneak two of them home and enjoyed them for two extra days! :)
AGENDA CALLIGRAPHY
The beautiful Agenda signs at our auction were hand-created by Renate Worthington, who kindly shared her calligraphic talents with us not only in creating her art piece, but also in creating these signs. Thank you, Renate!
VOLUNTEERS
There were MANY volunteers who helped out at the auction in registration and at the book sales table, as well as with the silent auction and various other things that needed doing that night. Thank you ALL for helping us make the auction such a fun night!
ALBERTA SOCIETY OF ARTISTS - TREX PROGRAM
Thank you to Caroline Loewen for working with us on behalf of the ASA TREX program to take our Collection pieces on tour from September to March. We're thrilled that our work will be able to be shared with the province of Alberta in this way!
