2014 Arts Awards Waterloo Region

Early June means the Arts Awards are upon us. Wednesday night at The Centre In The Square the annual event to celebrate the local art scene was held, with some fantastic music, stage performances, and delicious food samplings from around town.

I’ve been photographing the awards for a number of years and I always look forward to the event. Truth be told, I try to get there before the crowds so I can sample some food from each booth before I start shooting for the rest of the night. This year we were treated to Little Mushroom Catering, the new TWH Social, McCabe’s Irish Pub and Grill, Northern Thai, and Breadbaron. I really couldn’t pick a favourite, although Little Mushroom’s gourmet toppings on their mac and cheese—including goat cheese, bacon, and crushed Doritos—had me back for seconds.

I knew a number of nominees so it was nice to see them in attendance not to mention being recognized for their contributions to the arts in Waterloo Region. As per usual, the night had some killer music acts including Johanna Pavia and SoulDrive, School of Rock, Vienna D’Amato Hall, Victoria Bertini, and Courage My Love. They all performed two or three original songs and pretty much tore the roof off the place for each one.

And similar to previous years, there was an auction of some local art that attendees could bid on before the show and during intermission. I had two photographs up for sale, but neither sold. That’s okay, though, because now I can hang them in my house.

The amount of work that goes into putting this show on is really quite impressive. I actually did some of the graphic design work for the awards this year as well. Kyle Ische also helped out with the brochures, posters, ads, stickers, and anything else that popped up. There is more volunteer work involved than I remember and working on the graphics it made me appreciate it that much more. Both Rebecca Short and Joy Kramer deserve heaping amounts of praise for their efforts year after year for organizing an event of this magnitude.

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