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INUVIK
Every week for the past two months, Laura Worsley-Brown would stop by the Inuvik Library and pick up a manila envelope, never quite knowing what she would see when she opened it.

Lynn MacKinnon, left, and Laura Worsley-Brown participates in a community art project in which participants worked together to create various pieces. - Miranda Scotland/NNSL photo

"It's been quite an interesting process," she said. "I always get excited when I open the envelope."

Worlsey-Brown was a part of an art exchange this winter. Each week 16 participants, split into two groups, would go to the library, pick up a canvass, add to it, then bring it back and trade it for another piece. The catch, however, is no one ever knew who had the piece before them or who had it after.

At the start of the exchange it was really quite intimidating, Worsley-Brown said.

"Especially if you got a piece that obviously the person before you really knew what they were doing and really did some neat stuff," she said. "But as the process went on I ... got a lot less worried about ruining it and just sort of thought, 'Well this is all of our artwork now, so I'm going to do what I feel.'"

The art project was started by Inuvik residents Maia LePage and Rose Constantineau. According to LePage, the idea came up while the two women were sitting around talking about activities they could do to keep busy. She said the project was inspired in part by the band the Postal Service, which produced songs by sending CD-Rs in the mail to each other and adding to whatever was on them.

In the beginning, LePage said she wasn't sure how the art was going to turn out. She expected the pieces would either be absolutely fantastic or just terrible.

"I had some doubts," she said. "But then in week three I took all the canvasses to photograph them, just to see where they were, and some of the pieces were phenomenal. So I kind of had an idea at that point that people were really taking it seriously and it was going to work."

None of the participants have seen any of the canvasses since they added their own special touch to them. And the end result will stay a mystery until Jan. 12, when everyone gets together for The Art Exhibit, a dinner LePage is hosting for everyone involved.

At that time each of the participants will get back the first painting they started. Worsley-Brown said she is excited to get a look at her piece.

"I think in that first week I gave a very good idea of where I wanted it to go so I'm curious to see if it's even recognizable," she said.

Meanwhile, LePage is already on to planning the next art exchange.

"There was so much interest in it that we are actually going to do another one in January," she said.

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