[caption id=”attachment_197” align=”alignright” width=”200” caption=”Valerie at 800 Keefer Street”][/caption] Eastside Culture Crawl is a yearly event in Vancouver where artists of the Eastside open their studios and host visitors to show and sell their latest work. Led by the lovely Valerie Arntzen, the Crawl lets artists engage directly with the public and gain a huge audience in the space of a weekend rather than having to tout their work around galleries and spaces, and also give people an insight into their workspaces and often living spaces. I spent an afternoon at the Crawl and went to meet Valerie at her HQ, AMP at 800 Keefer Street, where several other artists have studios. She spoke to me about how they ended up there - several of them bought the place over a decade ago to safeguard their workspaces, and it’s worked out wonderfully… Below is the audio of a brief chat I had with Valerie. Valerie Arntzen - Executive Director of Eastside Culture Crawl

Just because a place has an abundance of water doesn’t mean that it can afford to ignore its welfare. [caption id=”attachment_211” align=”alignleft” width=”199” caption=”Water sources”][/caption] [caption id=”attachment_210” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”Vancouver Island Rapids”][/caption]