Small Art Printmaking Press on Whaler Bay, Galiano Island

Two of the first people I met on Galiano Island when I started visiting here back in 2007 were art educators Kit Grauer & Peter Scurr authors of “To Teach is to Touch the Future“.

Both Kit & Peter have a long history of making and teaching art as wll as teaching art teachers and have continued their life’s work beyond their careers and into retirement with their incredible workshop series Galiano Relief Retreats at The Boathouse Studio in Whaler Bay.

They have a great reputation for taking emerging artists & art educators under their wing and helping them develop their talents and careers.

The studio on Galiano Island has hosted many groups of students… young and old… over the years as the pair shares their love for art making including linocut printing and creative play and exploration with people from around the world over the past 12 years.

The first printmaking workshop of 2019 was hosted here at the studio last week when a group of fifty 9th grade students from Southpointe Academy came over to print blocks they had carved and assembled into a large mosaic collage.

The press belonged to the Department of Art Education at the University of British Columbia. Kit & Peter’s 3 former professors Sam Black, Jim McDonald, and Bob Steele were all very attached to Galiano Island and to the press.

Bob Steele was the printmaker and Kit & Peter studied his work and techniques and wrote several articles about him and the press including “Drawing as Language: Celebrating the Work of Bob Steele“.

The studio is full of all sorts of tools collected from a lifetime of teaching art and include the press and all of its bits and bobs as well as cutters, embossers, brushes, paints, clamps, pens, pencils, paints, palettes and almost any creative implement you can imagine.

When I first moved to Galiano Island I stayed with my ole buddy Jeremy Crowle who was living in a cabin near the Boathouse Studio on Whaler Bay and was working as an Artist in Residence under the tutelage of Kit & Peter.

Jer helped in the studio during the very first series of Galiano Relief Retreats and produced a lot of beautiful prints and paintings during that era.

There’s a whole season of Relief Retreat workshops coming up this Spring and Summer at The Boathouse Studio on Whaler Bay. Drop Kit, Peter or myself a note if you want to learn more or get involved.