Meet the Jurors for the 2018 RJAE

The PLRAC is delighted to announce this year’s adjudicators to the 2018 RJAE. Lee and Paul will also be leading two exciting workshops:

Lee Claremont is Mohawk and Irish and was born in Woodstock, Ontario on the territory of the Grand River Six Nations. Lee received her BFA (Honors) from UBC and now resides in the Okanagan Valley. Lee was an instructor for 15 years at the En’Owkin Centre, an International Aboriginal College in Penticton. Lee regularly mentors and facilitates  workshops throughout the province and Canada. ‘From The Spirit’, a documentary series featuring Indigenous artists from across Canada and the United States has filmed a documentary on Lee, which can be seen on Bravo and APTN. Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally and her paintings can be found in government, corporate, and private collections throughout the world as well as on book covers, art cards, event posters, and CD covers. One of her paintings is part of a traveling exhibition that features female artists from around the world. The exhibit started in Beijing, China where Lee attended the 5th United Nations Conference on Women and Children.

Lee will lead the workshop, Storytelling  With Paint and Brush: Storytelling is an art. Stories are told through many forms of art whether it be music, dance, spoken word, video, film etc. In this workshop we will tell our stories with paint and brush. “Painting a picture in the listener’s mind is full of energy that brings the stories alive.”  Brown Weasel


Paul Crawford has been the Director/Curator of the Penticton Art Gallery since the spring of 2006, arriving there after serving in the same position at the Grand Forks Art Gallery from 2002 – 2006. He has a lifelong passion for history, Canadian art and art history. Paul is also a co-producer of the annual ArtsWells Festival, producer of the International One Minute Play Festival and is involved with BC Musician Magazine. In addition he serves on the boards of Island Mountain Arts in Wells and the Okanagan School of the Arts in Penticton and is on the City of Penticton’s Public Arts Advisory Committee. Over the past twenty-five years Paul Crawford’s role in the arts in British Columbia has included: collector, scholar, lecturer, gallery owner, art consultant, independent curator, juror, board member, and gallery Director/Curator. With over 300 exhibitions to his credit, his exhibition, Behind the Lines: Contemporary Syrian Art, is currently touring across Western Canada with stops at the Yukon Arts Center, The Grand Forks Art Gallery, the Founders’ Gallery at The Military Museums in Calgary, the University of British Columbia, Duncan United Church, Brentwood College, Cedar Hill Arts Center, Mahon Hall, Salt Spring Island with additional stops at the Langley Museum and Archives this summer and the Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford from September through January 2019 with more venues being confirmed for 2019 and beyond.

Paul will lead a workshop, Demystifying the Art World: Things Every Artist and Collector Should Know.:
The art world isn’t all that complicated or is it just that the cream doesn’t necessarily rise to the top and fame can be fleeting. It’s a world that to many is seen as being unpredictable, baffling, nonsensical and more and more often, that contemporary art is all about the ‘Emperor’s new clothes.” That being said it is the world’s largest unregulated market and in many ways for artists looking to enter the commercial market you need to remember your work is a commodity, You are the brand and as such it’s really not all that much different from any other business in that there are protocols, contracts, agreements and, mostly, relationships involving curators, dealers, fellow artists, gallery visitors, art critics, and collectors…

This workshop will attempt to peel back layers of the art world from a marketplace perspective as well as from an institutional and historical context, providing insight and tips on how you can take control of your artistic legacy. The arts serve as cultural bookmarks, marking moments in our cultural history, validating intellectual curiosity, and at its root provides decoration for a collector’s home. The workshop will engage in a dialogue that will assist the audience in understanding their place in this diverse landscape and how practicing artists can have a direct hand in how their work is viewed today and how it will be remembered in the historic record.