The Pearl Company

Ten women were honoured May 5, 2009, for their contributions to Hamilton’s community, at the annual YWCA Women of Distinction Awards, in the Hamilton Convention Centre. Barbara Milne, co-founder of The Pearl Company with partner Gary Santucci, received the Arts, Culture and Creative Energy award.  http://www.thespec.com/article/560767

Here is the Statement of Nomination by Toby Yull, quoted in full:

STATEMENT OF NOMINATION ~ Barbara Milne for Woman of Distinction in the category: Arts, Entertainment & Creative EnergyBarbara Milne’s significant contributions to this community began in November 1981, while working as a Mobile Clinic Coordinator for the Canadian Red Cross (now Canadian Blood Services). Her gift for networking and connecting made Barbara one of their most effective and persuasive speakers.

Barbara was a regular visitor in local schools, business and industry offices as a tireless promoter of blood donation and donor commitment. Today she continues to bump into her donors and contacts from those years.

In 1993 with her partner, Colin Macdonald, Barbara helped found a Montessori-based alternative school in their Dundas home. Few of us would even think of such a radical idea, much less have the courage to jump in and make it happen. Barbara kept the school alive following Colin’s tragic death after just one term, in January of 1994.

The Colin Macdonald Community School has grown from its ‘basement birth’ into an exceptional bastion of alternative education, which has graduated hundreds of children into the community with a unique, tailored-to-the-child academic education.

In addition, their exposure to a rich smorgasbord of musicians, artists, theatricals, and hands-on art training and nature excursions, has imbued CMCS graduates with an ease, comfort and appreciation for the arts that will be with them life-long.

The Hamilton Board of Education’s successful S.A.G.E. school program was in part inspired by the Colin Macdonald School. The staff and parent groups from CMCS, constitute another part of Barbara’s enormous network of friends and supporters.

The Pearl Company

We are all ‘supporters of the arts’ in theory, but in moving downtown to the Pearl Company in 2006, Barbara put her money where her mouth is in a very big way.

 At a stage in life when many women are removing themselves from the public realm to focus on golf and grandchildren, Barbara Milne was embarking on the latest of her many adventures.

She and her partner, Gary Santucci, literally leapt into the void without a net, selling her Dundas heritage home to finance their move to an unimproved former factory building on Steven Street near King and Wentworth, with only the most rudimentary living space on the 3rd floor.

This they did in service of their Grand Vision: a revitalized Hamilton with neighbour-hoods blossoming with access to the arts, and all the wonderful spin-offs such a renaissance creates.

Barbara’s talent as a visionary allows her to see how a center for the arts in the lower city has the potential to improve the lives of the artists, the people in the neighbourhood, and the entire outlying city ~ and she is not afraid of the enormous work it takes to breathe such a vision to life.

With energy and passion, Barbara creates and nourishes the links between the Pearl Company and the community, bringing together people on all levels of Hamilton society from the challenged Landsdale neighbourhood, to the sometimes-fractious groups comprising the Hamilton Art Scene, to people living in the ‘artless’ suburbs.

Whether sending out deliciously chatty newsletters, appearing before Committees, or cheerleading her galleries and artists, Barbara, working tirelessly at her magnificent obsession, is a role model to neighbours, Pearl Company visitors, the Co-op students she mentors, and the population at large.

Her enthusiasm is boundless and contagious. Her energy is awe-inspiring. In her own words, ‘ I feel I have no option…. This is what you do. Isn’t it? Given the opportunity?’

Another recent and vitally important project involves Barbara and Gary working with the City of Hamilton to revise our zoning by-laws to encompass an Arts and Cultural designation which would protect buildings involved in arts-related activities. “There is still so much to be done”, says Barbara.

The Pearl presents musical, theatrical, literary and dance events, yoga and NIA classes, art sales and galas, Halloween, New Year’s parties, charity fundraisers, book launches, and classes in playwriting and theatre design.

The current show at the Pearl Company gallery, “Whimsical Women”, showcases local artists Cora Brittan, Sandee Ewasiuk, Doreen Wilson, Vera Dernovsek, and Monika Sheddon’s exquisite fabric doll-goddesses.

Collaboration with the former Toronto-based Artword Theatre has further expanded The Pearl’s theatre program. The Pearl Company building has been a natural for use in a variety of movie shoots, and is thus also a part of Hamilton’s burgeoning film industry.

The Pearl is a hub for recent immigrants, traveling shows, concerts, fashion events, music lessons and a raft of children’s activities including March Break camps, a puppet theatre and an after-school program centered on the arts: The Theatre of Liberation project.

It uses the six Pillars of Peace taken from the UN’s Peace Manifesto of 2000: 1. Respect all life 2. Reject violence 3. Share with others 4. Listen to understand 5. Preserve the planet 6. Rediscover solidarity. How inspiring to think of the changes to individual lives that these projects make possible.

The Pearl Company has also become a beacon of hope for the Landsdale Neighbourhood, working to improve safety by clearing alleyways, installing outdoor lighting, rehabilita-ting a series of nearby houses as studio rentals for artists, hosting the new Neighbourhood Association meetings and working to clear out crack houses and address local safety issues around drugs and prostitution.

Barbara represented the Neighbourhood Association at the Superintendent’s Advisory Council of the Hamilton Police Service in 2008. All of this work has a direct positive effect on the entire Landsdale district, and especially women and children in the area.

The Art Bus

Barbara’s pet project, The Art Bus, is directly responsible for bringing people back into parts of our city that have been derelict or forgotten, and perceived (rightly or wrongly) as unsafe.

Areas that have been bypassed by prosperity are today enjoying a renaissance thanks to a new population of artists, originally attracted by large spaces and cheap rents. Comparisons are often made to the early days of Queen Street and the Distillery District in Toronto.

Right behind the artists themselves, came the Art Bus. Launched in September 2006, it brings a direct infusion of visitors and buyers to the art districts, galleries, stores and restaurants now cropping up along the Art Bus route.

Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet nor dark of night, has stopped the Art Bus on its twice-a-month rounds, even in deepest, darkest January! It’s an elegantly simple shoestring operation that from day one, has had a deep impact on the streetscapes of our city.

It’s nothing short of inspiring to see an all-ages crowd of suburban matrons, urban hipsters, local politicians, Hamiltonians and out-of-towners of all stripes, climbing the steps of an old school bus to do the artsy equivalent of a pub crawl. Buses are frequently filled to overflowing as Barbara, megaphone in hand, leads riders on their adventure.

It’s common to hear people from Ancaster, Binbrook, Burlington and beyond, exclaiming, “Oh my Gosh; there’s that old barbershop where my dad used to get his hair cut. He used to bring me down here with him, but I haven’t back since the 70’s!”

Exactly.

It’s a very powerful experience to find yourself walking along James North on a black November night, in a jolly crowd of people just like yourself, enjoying the lively, funky streetscape. It’s changing our city. It’s cleaning up, lighting up, and bringing these formerly ‘mean streets’ back into the fold.

Women are often the early-adaptors to new waves in the culture and not surprisingly, the largely female population of the Art Buses is doing a great job of ‘viral marketing’ the experience.

Realtors across the province are noting the migration to Hamilton, with its positive effect on property values and neighbourhood revitalization. Accessibility brings redevelopment brings prosperity at all levels, and the Art Bus has been key to this new accessibility.

In these times, you couldn’t pay someone to do this kind of socio-economic development work. Barbara must be doing it for love, ‘cause she certainly isn’t doing it for the money! There is no salary attached to any of the Pearl Company’s endeavours.

Fortunately, Barbara has always lived like an artist, with more style than cash. Her unfailingly chic and elegant presentation makes Barbara even more personally inspiring to women and men alike.

When the bus finishes up at The Pearl for a musical wind-down and tour of the building, many suburbanites get their first taste of loft living a la Barbara and Gary, and it is deeply inspirational. An undivided space with huge windows, full of funky furniture, gigantic canvases, and all the signs of lives being lived at the leading edge of creativity ~ wow!

* * * * * *

In conclusion, it’s clear that Barbara’s personal and professional lives have merged into one life that is wholeheartedly dedicated to the betterment of our community through tireless volunteer action.

She has been a catalyst and a pioneer of exciting new projects that have inspired others to join in and add their contribution to the millions of small efforts that are slowly humanizing, beautifying and revitalizing this old industrial city on the bay.

More than any government program or planning initiative, it’s Barbara’s kind of total commitment and leadership that generates the momentum to move mountains; in this case, our very self-image. Residents of ‘the Hammer’ are beginning to talk proud about their town, and Barbara Milne is a big part of the reason why.

This era, of the inception of the Pearl Company, will be known to future generations as a marker for the rebirth of Hamilton. Its gracious ambassador, Ms Barbara Milne, gallerina extraordinaire, has done huge work to midwife that birth.

Barbara is without question a Woman of Distinction. This community is so lucky that she chose to make her magnificent contribution here. Let us recognize and thank her for doing so.

And thank you to the WOD selection committee.

PROFILE ~ Barbara Milne

Barbara Milne has been engaged in community-enhancing work in Hamilton for close to thirty years, culminating in her latest venture, The Pearl Company.

‘The Pearl’ has developed into an arts destination & home base for the wildly popular Art Bus. Regular gallery crawls introduce a hungry public to Hamilton’s burgeoning arts scene, with wonderful spin-offs.

Revitalized neighbourhoods & streetscapes, artists flocking to Hamilton, & art lovers flocking to galleries & shops that did not exist five years ago.

 A visionary working tirelessly to bring exciting new projects to life, mentoring & inspiring others to get on board, Barbara does all this with energy, style & grace, at a stage of life when many women are focusing on grandchildren & golf.