02/20/2020
Jim Elwood
http://weblink.donorperfect.com/SAPP
It’s not every day your 16 year old daughter comes home filled with excitement about her high school class. But that’s exactly what happened to me when Mitchy returned GUSHING about Mr. Elwood’s Fine Arts Careers Class at Mt. Boucherie Secondary. “He lets us pursue our own passions. He’s getting us to teach other kids, and…AND he plays Neil Young in class!! Neil Young?!! Sweet mother of pearl. This is someone I must meet! I’ll just say, my daughter has impeccable taste in inspirational humans!
SAPP 2.0 is all about the “giver backers” and give back Mr. Elwood does. For over 30 years Mr. Elwood has been an educator, sharing his love for the arts and the environment to countless lucky students.
Jim Elwood has been teaching all kinds of art for over 30 years. Lately it’s his extensive appreciation for Indigenous art that is fueling his pedagogical passions. He prides himself as the creator of one of the first high school art classes in the province that is based solely on Indigenous visual art. In 2017 he spearheaded the project “Elder Artists in Classrooms” that brought together students with 7 elder artists from the Okanagan resulting in a collaborative show at the Kelowna Art Gallery. Most recently he has created, in collaboration with cultural leaders and elders from Westbank First Nations, kindergarten to grade 9 Indigenous Art Lessons as digital ebooks for the Central Okanagan Public Schools.
Jim’s own artwork( Jim Elwood artist www.jimelwoodartist.wordpress.com) reflects the beauty in our natural world. An environmentalist at heart, Jim’s oils, watercolours, and illustrations portray beautiful scenes he has been privileged to in his life. “I believe in portraying the simple beauty around us, from coastal landscapes to interior vineyards, from wooden fish boats to heritage buildings,” he writes. He doesn’t just paint it, he protects it, too. In his university days he worked for the Cetacean Watch Society in Victoria documenting Killer Whale pods. While teaching in Calgary he would take students out to the Cochrane Ecological Institute where they would help winterize dens for Swift Foxes. Just recently he created a pollinator garden at the Benvoulin Heritage site.
Although Jim Elwood’s professional CV is filled with amazing projects he’s spearheaded, he says “it is the small moments where I can move a student forward artistically that are the most important. I pride myself in understanding what each student needs. I believe in three aspects of teaching art: skill, creativity and confidence. I want my students to have a creative goal, I teach them the raw art skills they need to achieve that goal, I teach them creative approaches to understand what they do and the end result is confidence in themselves.”
Currently our daughter finds her confidence in Mr. Elwood’s room at lunch. It’s a safe space where artsy kids who’d rather be creating can gather, work on their art and connect. As a mama bear to a quirky die hard arts lover this means EVERYTHING to me. If you or your children have the opportunity to be mentored by Jim Elwood, whether it be at Mt. Boucherie Secondary, or by classes at the Kelowna Art Gallery, or professional development days at SD23, run don’t walk. Mentors like this are hard to find. But in Mr. Elwood’s case—easy to keep. On his way out our door after his photo shoot he made sure to tell Mitchy, “once a student always a student. Need a reference or some advice? I’m here to help you in any way. Come by the classroom!”
*James Elwood spends his time in West Kelowna BC enjoying all it has to offer. His joy is “watching [his] family [wife Lorri, kids Alex & Victoria] thrive, that moment at dusk when the light is just perfect, discovering a great vinyl at a thrift store and that rare moment when you have a vision for a piece of art when the process is effortless and the results are spot on!
*Please support Jim's SAPP week by donating here: http://weblink.donorperfect.com/SAPP
**Even a few dollars makes a difference. Funds go directly to The Bridge Youth & Family Services and tax receipts are issued for donations over $10.
