They’re among the Tri-Cities’ best artists.
But, last Thursday, they weren’t using their hands to ply their skill. Instead, a few members of the Suite E Life Drawing Group were packing away their furniture and supplies from the Port Moody Arts Centre after being told to vacate.
Now, the 38-year-old organization is wondering where it will go as most of the civic rooms are booked for the fall.
And they’ve launched a campaign on their blog and Facebook page to protest the “eviction,” asking supporters to stop their memberships with PMAC and to lobby Mike Clay — mayor of the City of the Arts — and Stephen Torrence, PMAC’s executive director.
The issue concerns Suite E’s rental fee, a matter that popped up this spring after PMAC executive director Bruce Campbell departed the top job.
Last year, Campbell had wooed the group into leaving the Poirier community centre to set up shop at PMAC, which had recently expanded into the Appleyard/Centennial home.
Suite E president Myda Schmidt drafted a five-year agreement with Campbell that would see it pay a discounted rent plus an annual fee of $75 to become a PMAC society group member.
The terms were comparable to what it had at Poirier, Schmidt said, with Suite E using a PMAC basement room at around $23 per session from September to June.
In exchange, PMAC staff would take attendance every Tuesday night and collect cash from members and drop-ins.
It was a nice arrangement, said Schmidt who was regularly at PMAC with Suite E members Tracey Costescu, Adrienne Peacock and Christine Yurchuk to hang displays and attend exhibit openings and other events (Costescu also teaches at the centre). In addition, Suite E hosted its own show at PMAC.
But Torrence said the deal was too sweet.
And, given PMAC’s push by the board to get out of the red, the agreement could no longer be honoured.
In fact, Torrence said, the draft between Suite E and Campbell was never formalized or signed. “They came into an informal arrangement with Bruce Campbell that included extremely favourable terms for Suite E,” Torrence said last week.
Torrence said he became aware of Suite’s E arrangement after being hired in early July. He talked to the board — which, by this time, was headed by Valerie Simons after Del Holbrook resigned shortly after being named president — and it voted to have Suite E pay the standard rental rate for a non-profit society: $15 an hour for a three-hour session.
“They declined,” Torrence said of Suite E. “They kept insisting that we give them preferential treatment.”
At the end of July, the board met again to talk about the stalemate. Another offer was made to meet with Suite E.
Finally, on Aug. 5, Torrence, Simons and three Suite E members gathered to lay out the situation. Still, PMAC didn’t budge. “We gave them a week to think about it and then we never heard from them again,” Torrence said.
By mid-August, with the fall programming nearing, the board instructed Torrence to inform Suite E to remove their property from the St. Johns Street arts centre.
Schmidt said they had no choice but to clear out the easels and equipment they had custom built for their new digs: a $750 two-part fold-up model stand and a $200 fabric backdrop.
“We could have come to some resolution that would have seen us leave within a year but they gave us no option,” Schmidt said.
Now, Schmidt said Suite E will likely have to cancel its fall classes as models have to be hired two months in advance.
It’s now on the hunt for suitable space: It needs a large room to fit 20 artists and their easels; a place along a transit route (as most models come in from Vancouver on SkyTrain and bus) with windows that can be covered and doors that can be locked; and, most importantly, a place that’s affordable.
Torrence said he regrets that Suite E has been inconvenienced; however, PMAC needs to balance its books and be fair to all users.
“We have an obligation to the arts community as a whole and the community to treat everybody the same way,” he said. “We tried to explain that to [Suite E] but they weren’t prepared to accept that.”
He added, “We have moved on. We are trying to put our financial house in order…. Things are really positive here. People are turned on and excited again.”
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