An Urban Painter in Rural Saskatchewan
By David Baxter
As I was heading into Mortlach on the morning of Oct. 18, 2010, I had an idea for an “underage drinking in small-town Saskatchewan” story, which has been done countless times. I was trying to think of how I could make an under-age drinking story different from all the others when I received a surprising phone call. Sandra Zacker, owner and operator of the Urban Painter Gallery asked if I was still interested in doing an interview about the gallery. I left two voicemails with her a week before asking about an interview, but I received no response. It turns out that the Zackers had been on vacation in Las Vegas and had just returned to Mortlach the previous evening. I had started out with an ordinary small town story, but the village of Mortlach had other plans for me.
I found the Urban Painter Gallery in a lane behind a teahouse on Mortlach’s main street. The gallery was not open yet but there was still plenty to see on the outside of the gallery. The front porch of the gallery was covered with sculptures. There were wooden cats, rocks painted to look like ladybugs, a metal frog hanging on the wall by the door, and several wooden fish on the other side of the door. There were also copies of the Mona Lisa, The Scream, and American Gothic with the faces cut out so passersby could put their own faces in for photographs.
Zacker warmly welcomed me when she came to open the gallery at 10 a.m. She described her gallery as a “studio gallery, a place where people can come and enjoy art as well as create.”
Stepping into the gallery I could see what she meant. The walls were adorned with a large variety of paintings, and the rest of the room was full of art supplies including easels, painter smocks, brushes, crayons, pencil crayons and much more. It’s clear a great deal of care went into making the gallery what it is today in the three years since the Zackers moved to Mortlach. Coming from British Columbia, the Zackers were drawn to Mortlach by the town sign, which features a giant fiddle in honour of the Mortlach Fiddlers. They fell in love with the community and moved into town. Shortly after the move, Zacker opened the Urban Painter Gallery.“The gallery is a place to bring people together,” she explained.
For example, Zacker offers parent and child art lessons as a way to help parents bond with their children. In the next 20 years Sandra is predicting Mortlach will become “the artistic community of Moose Jaw, since many artistic people are moving (here) for the quiet and scenery.”
Zacker has high hopes that the gallery can be part of a revival for the village in helping attract other artists to the already busy artistic community. To help this, Zacker plans on opening a satellite Urban Painter Gallery in Moose Jaw next summer.
Meanwhile the gallery has already had an impact in the village. Ninth-grader Courtney Apperly, who enjoys looking at art inside the gallery, said it’s “a good thing to have in the town because it provides a place for people to show off their artistic talents.” Lois Jack, co-owner of the HollyHock Market, sees the gallery as “a really fun place” thanks to Zacker’s “warm and welcoming” personality and ability to relate to practically anyone, from “three-year-olds painting ladybugs on rocks, to eighty-year-olds taking painting classes.”
By bringing an artistic center to the village where people are not only encouraged to appreciate art but create it too, Sandra Zacker has undoubtedly left an impression on Mortlach.
