It became apparent last week that Victoria’s red-hot housing market isn’t limited to human homeowners, whose properties are being snapped up soon after they’re put on the market.
Dozens of birdhouses had flown off the shelves by the time There’s No Place Like Home had wrapped up Tuesday night at the Inn at Laurel Point.
More than 140 colourful, artistically decorated birdhouses were auctioned off at the event, hosted by the St. George’s Refugee Sponsorship Project, which raised more than $25,000 to assist Syrian refugee families.
Nearly 400 supporters paid $50 each to attend what sculptor and organizer Ginny Glover termed “a magical evening” highlighted by a silent and live auction, fun and games and music by the Tom Vickery Trio.
Charles Dool was one of seven drop-in Goward House artists who participated in the collaborative fundraiser that united six parishes from the Anglican diocese.
“The nice thing is no two of us had the same idea,” said the retiree, who specializes in botanical watercolours.
His “Home Sweet Home” creation featured a green-shingled roof, climbing roses, hollyhocks and petunias.
Dool extended the base of the wooden birdhouse provided by volunteers, used popsicle sticks to create its white picket fence and crafted its chimney by gluing together corrugated cardboard and painting it.
“I’m in the low-700s now with my paintings, and they’ve been to 15 countries, but this is the first time I’ve actually painted a house,” he quipped.
The eye-catching birdhouses created in a variety of styles ranged from whimsical artworks to meticulously-crafted sculptures made with elements including glass, clay, metal, seaweed and wood.
Highlights included “Hope and Joy Corporation,” Ninette Ollgaard’s striking treehouse-like structure; “Flip Flop Flower Fly By,” Marion Evamy’s dramatically striped birdhouse with a flower-topped roof mounted on two leg-like poles wearing orange flip-flops; and “BRD-ST,” Brad Ingimundson’s radical grey sculpture recalling a Star Wars Imperial Walker.
“Home should be a place of happiness and safety, and it is my wish that the Syrian refugees are offered this opportunity here in Canada,” wrote Evamy in her artist’s statement.
Each of the artists Glover and committee member Sheryl Fisher contacted before their event took flight had their own reasons for participating.
“I felt like I had to have something to do about the refugee situation where I was actually involved in some way,” said Esquimalt artist Arlene Nesbitt.
“It’s imaginative, and it’s about home, and we have some refugees in Esquimalt.”
Nesbitt employed her talent for woodburning to create her naturalistic piece, featuring an image of an exotic red mushroom she once photographed in Scotland.
“I wanted to do something that would make the birds feel at home,” she said.
Robyn Tessier and Zack Martyn, two nomadic graphic artists from Saskatchewan, created “bird haus (seed bar),” their funky birdhouse, in part as practice for a tiny house they will soon build in Saskatchewan.
The couple, who have been living in a motorhome here for the past 18 months, plan to build their micro-home on Tessier’s family’s farm with help from her father and bring it back here on a trailer.
“Victoria has inspired us,” says Tessier, 28, explaining what motivated them to create their avian take on a modern hostel/food truck, which they felt fit well with the city’s culture.
Their rough-hewn birdhouse features a side kitchen and seed drawer that is quite literally for the birds, and a retractable roof with a tiny metallic bathtub.
Martyn, 32, said they love challenging themselves creatively while contributing to communities through Lefthook Design Lab, their freelance business that gives them the freedom to travel while they work.
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