Region Category: All of Manitoba

Mentoring is a rewarding experience for both the mentor and the mentee. Creative Manitoba serves as a facilitator to help up-and-coming rural artists find mentors to further their artistic growth.

A recent graduate of our Exchange Arts Incubator program, Solange Roy is a Francophone, Indigenous ceramic artist living and working in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Solange obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from the University of Manitoba in 2022. She won the People’s Choice award at the BFA Honours exhibition and her cake sculpture “You Want a Piece of Me?” won the provincial prize for the BMO 1st Art! National Competition. Solange specializes in hand-building methods to create intricate, colourful and unique sculptures.

In this spotlight, we feature visual artist and mentor Kelly Klick and her mentee Atlas Lister. Read on to find out more about their experiences working together!

Mentorship pair Colten Matousek & BJ Verot are taking part in our 2022/2023 Professional Mentorship Program, in the discipline of film. They have been working on developing Colten’s first official short film: developing the script, editing, shot listing, and refining grant writing skills.

Mentorship pair Lara Schroeder & Débora Cardaci took part in our 2022/2023 Rural Mentorship Program, in the discipline of visual art, working with molds, oil painting and charcoal.

Lita Fontaine is of Dakota, Anishinaabe, and Metis descent. Fontaine was born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and grew up in Winnipeg’s North End. She is an interdisciplinary artist, and received her Masters of Fine Arts specializing in Inter-Media. Lita is a founding member of Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Gallery, where she held her first solo exhibition. She received the University of Manitoba Distinguished Alumni Award in 2021 and her work can be found on murals in Winnipeg, and in personal and public art collections.

Shawna Forester Smith is a chronically ill and disabled Ojibwe artist and writer living in a chronic care unit at Deer Lodge Centre in Winnipeg.

Creative Manitoba’s Artist Spotlight is happy to feature singer/songwriter and past GerryFest mentee, Shay Wolf. GerryFest is an annual arts festival at The St Norbert Arts Centre, honouring Gerry Atwell’s memory and contributions to the artistic community. GerryFest hosts the SNAC Rise Up Mentorship Program for emerging artists.

Ashley Bieniarz, Kwiat is an avant-pop Metis and Polish artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has been playing piano since she was three years old but didn’t start performing original music until 2015 while she was completing my bachelor of music at the University of Manitoba in the Desautels Faculty of Music.

Tyson Caron is a proud dad, husband, son, friend, a local Winnipeg filmmaker, and coffee drinker. He’s a person who puts relationships first. As a writer, director, producer of both documentary and fiction films, relationships are at the heart of his art form.