Yellowknife (July 28/06) - It's a cliche, but good things do come to those who wait. It helps if they bust their asses in the meantime, though.

Next week, years of work will come to fruition at the first Yellowknife Arts Festival, and the corresponding NorthWords Writers' Festival, which run from Aug. 3-7.

Dawn Oman poses with furniture, painted in her signature style. She will be facilitating workshops to help participants create their own. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

"We have hundreds of good artists in this town and no one knows about them," said festival director Larry Adamson.

He and other organizers have been raising money for the arts festival over the last three years. With more than $30,000 in funding from the City of Yellowknife and other donors, Adamson said the annual event is ready to go.

"It's wonderful to see it happen right now," he said.

The festival will hold showings at galleries around town and workshops as diverse as puppet-making and mural painting.

Yellowknife artist Dawn Oman will be organizing workshops on working with stained glass, as well as a course in creative furniture painting, something Oman said she came to by accident, as she reorganized her home.

"I looked around my kitchen, and oh, look, another blank canvas!" she said with a laugh. "This spread to chairs and what have-you."

The festival will also unveil several fibreglass ravens, designed by sculptors Jordan Martin and John Sabourin. The big birds, decorated by a wide array of Yellowknife artists, will be displayed around the city.

"They look beautiful," said organizer Betty Wilcox. "I've seen several of them so far and they're amazing."

Corresponding with this year's event is the first-annual NorthWords Writers' Festival, which will see a number of Northern and southern authors converge on Yellowknife to hold workshops, give presentations and share ideas.

Organizer Judith Drinnan said the festival reflects the changes that have happened in Northern writing in recent decades.

"I was thinking about 25 years ago when I first came to the North," she said. "All the material that was written about the North was written by people not from the North."

"(Northern authors) have enough stuff out there now that we should be celebrating our own writers."

Fort Smith writer Richard Van Camp will be the author-in-residence for the event, running workshops throughout the long weekend. The festival will also feature Rankin Inlet's Michael Kusugak, Rene Fumoleau and others.

Drinnan said writers Jim Green, Laurie Sarkadi and Jamie Bastedo have already committed to next year's event.

"This isn't going to be a one-shot deal," she said.

The festival will host open mic nights at the Wildcat Cafe on Thursday and at Javaroma on Friday, Aug. 4, as well as a series of readings at the legislative assembly on Saturday, Aug. 5.

Adamson said this year is a test run of sorts, as the festival takes baby steps towards becoming an established territorial event.

"Our future vision is to be a large festival showcasing the art of a large number of artists," he said. "Yellowknife should have a big festival to follow and complement the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik."

The festival is a long way from the $300,000 price tag that normally accompanies the Inuvik festival, but Adamson sees hope for the future.

"Our original vision was for a budget of $200,000," he said. "We discovered that it's not that easy to raise large amounts of money the first time around. We're kind of starting small."