The Weyburn Arts Council was the first arts council established in Saskatchewan in 1964 by a City of Weyburn bylaw and is currently governed by a ten-member volunteer board.

In 1974, they began acquiring various local works of art for the city. Their main purpose for the collection is to preserve visual arts examples that were created primarily in Saskatchewan and to establish an official record of our cultural heritage.

The collection now holds hundreds of local and area pieces of art that the Arts Council is currently cataloguing for their big move to the new Credit Union Sparks Centre.

"We have well over 200 pieces in our collection and I decided that I would update the catalogue records," told Regan Lanning, Curator for the City of Weyburn and the Weyburn Arts Council. "I've been working hard on it for over a month so far and I'm not even halfway done yet. But I will persevere, I believe in my abilities, I will get there. So we're recording such things as artist information, describing the pieces, and once they're all properly documented and updated I'm wrapping the pieces and preparing them to be moved to the Credit Union Spark Centre."

The art cataloguing process does require proper training as there are many steps that need to be followed.

"I took a class this past winter in Collections Management, it's offered through the Museum Association of Saskatchewan," Lanning explained. "One of the wonderful things that has come from this past year is that so many classes that would be offered in other communities are now just being offered online instead. So instead of me having to travel to say Melfort, I can take the class over the period of a month from my own computer."

She explained that the last time the permanent collection had been properly catalogued was back in 1996.

"Of course standards have changed now and the methods of cataloguing have changed as well," said Lanning. "I now have brand new cataloguing abilities and have been completely overhauling all of the information for the collection that used to be in several separate binders in my office into one kind of hot sheet for each piece. It has everything from a photo of the work, to artist information, a description of the work for insurance purposes, and we're also preparing to have the collection appraised again this fall. So we're excited for that to happen also."

Lanning explained that she couldn't have done it all without the help of a very well known local photographer.

"This past summer Christopher Borshowa came and he photographed the entire permanent collection for us," Lanning stated. "It took us almost a week of evenings to get accomplished as there are so many pieces in the collection. We worked steadily at it and we'll be meeting again this summer to catalogue new pieces, newly discovered pieces, and rediscovered pieces."

The Arts Council is funded by grants, fees, and donations from community members. As a non-profit charitable organization, they can issue charitable donation receipts to those who donate.

"So the Arts Council was able to take my started collections records and do condition reports and such things on them," expressed Lanning. "And then they'll be helping me to label each piece and wrap them in bubble wrap so that they can be safely transported. And now I'm taking those records that they helped me with and making a digital copy that will be saved on the city's remote servers. So that they'll never be lost and are always available for future generations to enjoy and future curators to work off of. It will just be so much easier to look up and find each piece as needed. So we're updating a collection that was started in 1979 to 2021 standards."

The Weyburn Arts Council is requesting information about art and artists that have pieces in the Permanent Art Collection. If anyone has art in the permanent collection or has a family member who’s art is featured, please reach out to the Arts Council to share your information. You can reach them by phone at (306) 848-3219 or by email at weyburnartscouncil@weyburn.ca

"I cannot wait, we will start moving in the summer, and we're still on schedule for opening in September. It's going to have everything we need under one roof. It's going to be wonderful," added Lanning.

For more information on the Weyburn Arts Council and to keep up to date with their latest projects you can visit their official Facebook page or their page on the City of Weyburn website.