About Us

Discover the heart of Pemberton Arts Council by exploring Who We Are and meet the passionate team driving creativity forward. Stay up-to-date with our Latest News, featuring exciting events, and opportunities. Looking to make a difference? Volunteer with Us and contribute your time and talents to support the arts. Have questions or ideas? Visit Contact Us — we’d love to connect with you!

Events & Programs

Explore upcoming programs, workshops, and events on our Community Arts Event Calendar and never miss a moment of creativity! Celebrate with us at the Mountain Muse Festival. Dive into the Outside Voices Mural Program to discover stunning public art across our community. Curious about past highlights? Check out Past Programs and Events for a glimpse of the impactful projects and memorable moments that continue to inspire us today.

The Artists

Discover the talented artists in the area on our Meet the Artists page. Support the arts and enjoy exclusive benefits by Becoming a Member—your contribution helps us grow and thrive! Don’t miss out on exciting opportunities—explore Calls for Artists to submit your work, join exhibitions, and participate in upcoming projects.

About Us

OUR MISSION

To foster a vibrant arts scene by elevating Pemberton artists and increasing community participation in the arts in the Pemberton Valley.

CORE VALUES

Inspiring

Innovative

Authentic

OUR VISION

Pemberton and regional communities value Art as a key element of their heritage and culture.

CONSTITUTION

To build, promote and integrate the arts and culture into the
fabric of the community of Pemberton and surrounding areas, by:

  • Educating and increasing the public’s understanding and appreciation of the arts and culture by providing performances and exhibitions of an artistic and cultural nature in public places.

  • Providing instructional seminars and workshops to the public and to artists on topics related to arts and culture.
  • Working collaboratively with other organizations in Pemberton and the surrounding areas to support, enhance and coordinate artistic and cultural experiences such as, but not limited to, workshops, events, presentations, exhibitions and festivals.
  • Working collaboratively with other organizations, businesses, government, First Nations communities and local residents in Pemberton and the surrounding areas to support and enhance artistic and cultural tourism.
  • To do all such other things as ancillary or incidental to the attainment of the above.

FOCUS AREAS

  • Finding a home for PAC
  • Building organizational capacity
  • Collaborating
  • Increasing awareness and participation
  • Programming
  • Performances, exhibitions & festivals
  • Educating (includes seminars and workshops)
  • Celebrating artistic endeavours and culture

A CREATIVE HOME
FOR US ALL

Our differences make us who we are, and we celebrate that! Including people from all walks of life in our organization allows us to best represent the diverse community that we live in. We ensure accessibility, equality, and diversity are prioritized in our arts & culture programming.

Meet our Board

Joan Richoz

Chair

Tessa Spicer

Treasurer

Angela Waldie

Secretary

Susan Holden

Director

Susan Hutchison

Director

Renata Zablotney

Director

Katy Cameron

Director

Barb Hinde

Vice Chair & Director

Christine Raymond

Vice Chair & Director

Chair

Joan Richoz

Joan Richoz grew up in Vancouver, received a Master’s degree at UBC, and has lived in Whistler since 1974 with her husband Marcel and raised her two children here. Her strong belief in the importance of fine arts in the education of her children led her to become involved in the first Whistler Arts Council Children’s Art Festival in 1983. She was on the Arts Whistler board until May 2022 when she reached her 6-year term and is taking a year off. Joan started the Whistler Public Library in 1986 and worked there until 2006. She has served as a board member for Arts BC, Association of BC Public Library Directors, Whistler’s Mature Action Community and is a current board member of the Whistler Farmers’ Market and the Sea to Sky Arts Councils Alliance. Joan is passionate about the arts and is excited to see the growth of the arts and culture in the Sea to Sky corridor and is eager to work with the Pemberton Arts Council and the community of Pemberton.

Treasurer

Tessa Spicer

Tessa Spicer is a bookkeeper living in Pemberton, BC. After doing the books for Pemberton Arts Council for two years, she was invited to join the board.
She enjoys being in nature and being with art of all sorts (music, visual arts, architecture, comedy, theatre, and fashion) on her various travels.
Tessa is passionate about the arts for their contribution to the vibrancy of a community. Supporting artists often means supporting diverse ways of thinking and being in the world, which is important to her.

Secretary

Angela Waldie

Angela has been a resident of the Sea to Sky corridor for the past 20 years and is the Artistic Director of Gruff Goats Dance Collective, a non-profit multidisciplinary performing arts group in Pemberton. She also brings seven years of Human Resources experience within a local construction company, and previously spent seven years teaching at the Pemberton Dance School.
Angela has over 25 years of experience in dance, both recreationally and professionally, with training in ballet (RAD), modern, flamenco, Polynesian, musical theatre, jazz, and hip hop. Her professional performance credits include the Ohana Hotels in Waikiki, Victoria Folk Festival, Dancing on the Edge Festival in Vancouver, Royal City Youth Ballet, and the Vancouver Club.
Originally from Victoria, she completed Main Dance’s Pre-Professional Bridging Program in 2000 and graduated from the Capilano College Theatre Program in 2002.
As a mother of two, Angela is deeply committed to strengthening and supporting the local arts community and is pleased to serve on the Arts Council board.

Director

Susan Holden

Susan Holden is strategic, creative, and caring. She strives to have a positive impact in the world through sharing compassion and supporting people and projects. She has a Master of Counselling Psychology degree and has worked and volunteered in community services and healthcare for over twenty years. Her arts and culture experience includes; senior arts organization administrator, creative hub board director, event organizer, arts and culture funding strategist, and twenty years as a professional musician. She has guided teams in healthcare, hospitality, financial services, social services, and arts and culture. She is gratified to find ways to support others to do their best work.

Director

Susan Hutchison

Susan Hutchinson grew up in West Vancouver and moved to Paris, France when she was 19. She was involved in an English theatre group called Theatre Maubel, where she performed in many productions and learned the theatre craft from the ground up from many talented expats. At 21 she moved to Los Angeles determined to become a big or even a little star but unfortunately after 3 years grinding it out in the city of lights, she realized that her dream was not going to come true and returned to Vancouver. Susan moved to Whistler in 1994 and finally found her forever place after many years of traveling around. Since moving to Whistler, Susan has performed in many productions at the Flagstop Festival and has been heavily involved with the Between Shifts theatre group out of Squamish. When not acting you will find her in her real role at Pique newsmagazine being the sales manager of Pique newsmagazine.

Director

Renata Zablotney

Renata Zablotney is an art and drama teacher at Pemberton secondary school. She is a mixed media artist who specializes in animals and iconography. She is very passionate about community connective projects, and is directing the Pemberton arts council first community theatre production of little shop of horrors. When not working on art projects or the next upcoming play, she is chasing around her son, and enjoying home life with her husband.

Director

Katy Cameron

Originally from North Vancouver, Katy first moved to the Sea to Sky over a decade ago and landed in Pemberton in 2021. She has dabbled in most types of visual arts, including fibre arts, but now focuses on watercolour painting. A collector of bold linocut prints and vibrant acrylic paintings, she is a diehard believer in supporting local entrepreneurs. Her varied career background is in project management, construction, strata management, and tourism.

Vice Chair & Director

Barb Hinde

Barb is a herbalist who loves creativity and art. Her place of choice to create art is in the garden, using plants and flowers with different colours and textures. She is also fascinated by what nature can provide in the forest—medicinally, culinarily, and artistically.

Until recently, Barb used only her camera to capture the beauty of both her garden and the forest, but over the last year or so, she has expanded into sketching the plants, trying to catch their individual personalities. While she finds it challenging, it is also a lot of fun. When she first started sketching, she was trying to capture the magic of the forest, until she realized the magic is actually created by each individual plant. She admits that it is really just an excellent excuse to spend more time in the woods.

Barb is a retired, certified organic grower who has taken her passion for both the healing and visual beauty of plants and turned it into a livelihood. She has taught both herbal medicine and general growing practices for many years, but her first love remains sitting in the garden (or forest) and simply watching the plants grow.

Vice Chair & Director

Christine Raymond

Meet our Staff

Jody Stockfish

Executive Director

Executive Director

Jody Stockfish

As the Executive Director of the Pemberton Arts Council, Jody Stockfish brings decades of experience across print media, music promotion, and publicity to her role. She is deeply dedicated to expanding artistic opportunities throughout Pemberton and beyond, with an ultimate vision to champion the region as a vibrant, diverse destination for arts and culture. Jody feels privileged and grateful to live, work, and create on the beautiful, unceded traditional territory of the Líl̓wat Nation.

pembertonartscouncil@gmail.com:pembertonartscouncil@gmail.com

pembertonartscouncil@gmail.com:pembertonartscouncil@gmail.com

Meet our Village of Pemberton Appointee

Katrina Nightingale

Council Liaison

Council Liaison

Katrina Nightingale

Katrina grew up in a home where music, art and dance were celebrated, and as Council Liaison, she is passionate about supporting Art and Culture in Pemberton. She believes it fosters social cohesion, connection and a sense of belonging for people of all ages and backgrounds.  It creates resilience through its inclusivity. Katrina supports integrating creativity into public spaces and infrastructure to grow a more vibrant community and highlight our unique culture for residents and visitors.

OUR HISTORY

Over forty-five local artists with diverse strengths and talents founded Pemberton Arts Council in 2006. The Council developed events like MADE (Music Art Dance Expression) and Mountains of Art to raise awareness for local artists.

We had a vision to create a sculpture project throughout town, starting with Martha Sturdy’s donation of her metal sculpture in the roundabout. Then Davide Pan built a creation live during the original Music Festival in 2008, which now lives at the Community Garden. The Art Barn in town was a focus for a centre of the arts where there could be shows, music in the garden and a host of workshops and meetings (thanks to Liks for the graffiti signage!).

Cultural Roundtable, a Village of Pemberton Committee of Council, formed in 2011. The Roundtable’s mandate was to research ways to strengthen cultural development in the Pemberton region. Over the next two years it became evident that the logical organization to take the lead on strengthening cultural development was the Pemberton Arts Council.

Since the handover, we’ve developed board governance tools and expanded our mandate to support all genres of artistic endeavour and celebrate cultural diversity. In 2016 we acquired a number of grants which allowed us to hire our first Executive Director, who produced our Marketing Strategy & Communications Plan, increased our membership with new member benefits, and created a website.

In 2020, the Council gained a number of new board members who were excited and energized to bring new life to the organization. They successfully navigated the turbulent time of COVID and were able to bring the joy of art to the community via the 1st Annual Pemberton ArtHOP – showcasing local artists’ work in business window-fronts around town.

Now in its 20th year, PAC looks forward to engaging with the Pemberton Valley to foster a vibrant arts scene by elevating our local artists and providing ways for the community to engage with the arts.

PAC is a member of the Sea to Sky Arts Council Alliance – comprised of Bowen Island, Lions Bay, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton arts councils – working together to promote arts and culture in the Sea to Sky Corridor.

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Since the handover, we’ve developed board governance tools and expanded our mandate to support all genres of artistic endeavour and celebrate cultural diversity. In 2016 we acquired a number of grants which allowed us to hire our first Executive Director, who produced our Marketing Strategy & Communications Plan, increased our membership with new member benefits, and created a website.

In 2020, the Council gained a number of new board members who were excited and energized to bring new life to the organization. They successfully navigated the turbulent time of COVID and were able to bring the joy of art to the community via the 1st Annual Pemberton ArtHOP – showcasing local artists’ work in business window-fronts around town.

In its 15th year, PAC looks forward to engaging with the Pemberton Valley to foster a vibrant arts scene by elevating our local artists and providing ways for the community to engage with the arts.

PAC is a member of the Sea to Sky Arts Council Alliance – comprised of Bowen Island, Lions Bay, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton arts councils – working together to promote arts and culture in the Sea to Sky Corridor.

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