A piano that spent last summer in the Olde Towne Plaza will be unrecognizable when it returns to its outdoor home this spring.
The Town of Okotoks is inviting artists from across the Foothills to enter their ideas for the chance to paint the piano before it makes its debut in a lunchtime concert in the plaza on May 25.
“Lots of communities paint their pianos,” said Allan Boss, Okotoks culture and heritage manager. “It becomes an expression for their communities. It becomes something people feel a connection with and to.”
Boss said the original plan was to paint the 1936 Kreisler piano, made by Mason & Risch in Ontario and donated by Okotoks area resident Art Gieck last year, before it was placed in the plaza last summer.
However, there wasn’t enough time to get it painted once the Town received it.
“Then we thought we are going to get it out, get people playing it, get the community appreciating the piano and get the contest happening this year,” Boss said.
The Town put a call out to artists last month, asking them to submit designs that are innovative, reflect the community, bright, inviting and include something to let people know the piano is for everyone to play.
Submissions are due Feb. 26 at 4:30 p.m.
The winner, who will be announced on March 4, will receive $250 plus material costs up to $100 and must complete painting by April 1. The unveiling is in conjunction with a picnic at the piano on May 25, said Boss.
“A pianist will perform an hour lunchtime concert, so bring your lunches or to go a local restaurant and grab something to eat and sit in the park and enjoy some music for an hour,” he said.
“This year we want to make a bit of an occasion with putting it out for the first time. The piano will be freshly painted so there will be some hoopla about that, too.”
Boss said the Town’s picnics at the piano will feature some of the region’s top musicians once a month from May to September during the lunch hour.
“Last year we had a lunch piano concert during Alberta Culture Days and it was pretty popular,” he said. “If you go onto the Internet and Google piano at the plaza in Okotoks you get lots of results. People were posting their own images. There is a picture of a dog playing the piano.”
It wasn’t just the concert that drew attention among visitors and residents, but the piano itself, said Boss.
“Very often I would drive by and there was someone sitting there playing on it,” he said. “The community enjoyed it.”
He hopes it will draw even more attention once a local artist puts his or her personal touch on the 80-year-old instrument.
While Boss said the Town has received no submissions yet, he expects they will start arriving a couple weeks before the deadline.
“I anticipate we’ll get some interest,” he said. “When I posted it on Facebook we got some likes. What typically happens with contests for things like this they will come flooding in near the deadline.”
Boss is confident artists will step forward.
“What an opportunity to have your work on there and bring art and culture into our community,” he said. “It’s just an amazing opportunity for somebody to have those bragging rights.”
The Town will put together a panel of judges to select the artist late this month or in early March.
Among them will likely be members of the Okotoks Arts Council, which is covering the cost of art supplies needed to paint the piano, said Linda Macallum, council chairwoman.
“Our mandate is to support art and anything to do with art,” she said. “We piggyback on the town quite a bit.”
Macallum said when the Town approached the arts council with the idea they were ecstatic.
“The piano idea is just brilliant,” she said. “Giving someone the opportunity to paint it is great. It’s exposure to the arts and what people can do with the arts and it just brings the community together, I think.”
Boss said this may become an annual event for the Town.
“The idea initially was to do the contest every year, but we will see how it goes and play that by ear and make that decision near the end of the summer and see how it stands up to the weather,” he said.
The piano will be at the Okotoks Plaza and available for the public to play from May 28 to Sept. 25.
For more information about Paint the Piano go to okotoksculture.ca
