The Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula put itself on the map — literally.

It’s not the now familiar giant red letters spelling out ARTISANS on the lawn at Tulista, but the number 4 on the tour map. The nearly year-old arts centre at Tulista Park will be part of the fall artists’ studio tour put on by the council each autumn.

“We are starting Artistans at Christmas just to coincide with the studio tour,” said president Dianne Cross. “So we have put the arts centre on our studio tour map.”

It’s the second time the new centre has appeared as part of the tour, drawing more than 200 visitors during the tour last year.

This year they will celebrate the International Year of Natural Fibre Artisans.

“We’re going to have a girl set up her knitting machine and show how to use the knitting machine,” Cross said. They’ve also invited the Saanich Peninsula Woolcraft 4H group to create a display that spells out processing wool from beginning to end.

The demonstrations will continue well beyond the studio tour weekend as Artisans at Christmas also includes artist demos. It will also include the works of more than 30 artists, in the continuation of what has clearly been a busy year in the park.

“The arts centre here is really special to the arts community because the arts council has been in existence for 18 years and has all that time worked out of peoples’ houses, files stored in basements ... finally we have a home,” Cross said.

They represent the arts from those in paint and crafts, to music to movement.

“This building became available, we looked at it and thought it would be appropriate for an arts centre so we competed with five other groups,” Cross said. The Community Arts Council came out on top of the heap because, Cross said, the town felt it was a good use for the building, next to a large children’s park.

The business began with last fall’s Artisans at Christmas.

“That is a show of contemporary and traditional, mainly crafts, representing the crafts people on the Peninsula because there are quite a few shows for paintings and that type of artwork but the crafts people this is sort of their show. Although we have paintings in it as well,” Cross said.

Winter swiftly flew into spring and summer and the warm-weather programs started up. Artists began to rent the waterfront gallery while the arts council hosted classes and workshops for the community. “We put easels out so the kids could paint or crayon on easels,” Cross said. They brought in older students to supervise the work, then found an artist who would come to the pavilion and teach art classes.

“We invited the seniors from the assisted living homes that we have in Sidney to come down and sit on our beautiful deck with a gorgeous view. We served them a cup of tea and we had an artist that came in and helped them do drawings and paintings of the view they were looking at.”

The CACSP also hosts shows like the annual Sidney Fine Art Show last weekend at the Mary Winspear Centre.

“The revenues that come from the shows, it uses to help these member groups that belong to the association. In past years we’ve given out quite generous grants to musical groups, literary groups, to the theatre,” Cross said. “One very special event or part of the arm of the arts council is funding artists to go into the schools.”

Those funds allow for artists, whether it’s in music, tactile arts, visual, theatre or literary, to create a program for local students.

With a year jam-packed full of classes, programs, shows and artwork, the Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula is ready to welcome another 200-plus people through its doors at the arts centre in Tulista Park this weekend. The fall studio tour is Oct. 24 and 25. Maps are available at the office in Tulista Park, Tanners, Michell’s Farm Market, coffee shops, and tourist info booths in Sidney. Visit www.cacsp.com for more information.

reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com