Last December, the news of a resurrected Arts Nova Scotia—an arm’s length arts council—was announced by Christopher Majka (Nova Scotia Cultural Action Network). Communities, Culture and Heritage Minister David Wilson put the council into motion and last Tuesday, exactly 10 years on the button after the last council was disbanded by the Hamm government, the newly appointed council met for the first time.
The Arts Nova Scotia board is a diverse group of 11 Nova Scotians recommended by the Arts Nova Scotia Transition Committee and selected by David Wilson. The first appointees to the board, for two-year terms, are Cory Bowles (dancer, actor and musician), Claudia Buckley (consultant and contracted administrator of the Canada Council’s Theatre Section’s Flying Squad program), Michel de Noncourt (visual artist, sculptor and educator), Susan Hanrahan (executive director of the Nova Scotia Designer Craft Council), Mary Elizabeth Luka (arts consultant, award-winning documentary producer and television director), Eric Mathis (personnel and production manager for Symphony Nova Scotia), Barbara Richman (established career arts administrator, consultant and former executive director of Symphony Nova Scotia and Halifax Dance), Laura Schneider (director/curator at Cape Breton University Art Gallery), Don Sedgwick (chairman and past-president of Transatlantic Literary Agency Inc.), Candace Stevenson (retired director of Culture and Heritage with the former Department of Education and Culture) and Mindy Gallant-Zwicker (emerging Mi’kmaq artist).
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2012.
