A while back, someone forwarded me a link to
Going Rural, a
journal style blog run by artist
Serena McCarroll who left Vancouver
with her partner
Tyler Brett for the wilds of Saskatchewan.
After graduating from
ECIAD, Serena and Tyler both found
that trying to get a decent job with a BFA was no easy task, and so trying to make
ends meet in Canada's
most expensive city didn't leave them a tonne of time for being creative.
When I asked her "why rural Saskatchewan?" she told me that 9 years
earlier Tyler attended his cousin's wedding in the town of Dana (population 30)
in
a beautiful Ukrainian church that she and her husband hand purchased for
$1700. That's right. I said they bought a church for $1700.
(I immediately
started searching CBC's job boards to see if there were any openings for
bloggers in Dana.)
Armed with dreams of cheap prairie property, the two loaded
up a moving van, and headed east to Dana where they lasted about 4 months
before moving the nearby Bruno (population 600) where they're now in the
process of opening a store called "
All Citizens", named half-jokingly to compliment the senior's centre next door. The building, which they
purchased for a whooping $6500 is also their living quarters. Their hope is to
create a gallery gift shop / coffee house / hangout sort of place that features a mixture
of local crafts, contemporary art, and live music.
With city life getting so expensive, I've been wondering
when a critical mass of artistic-types decide to pack it in, and head for
greener pastures. Who knows... Serena and Tyler could be the first wave of a
movement. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off.
