Location: Eltuek Arts Centre

Loretta Gould

Loretta is a self-taught artist from the Waycobah First Nation in Nova Scotia. Born and raised in a reservation in Cape Breton, she creates bright, beautiful pieces with fabrics, photos and acrylics. Her art is spiritual and her way to get her feelings on canvas. Her first paintings sold in Finland and Germany, and has been creating and exhibiting her pieces ever since.

She is currently working on a compilation of stories that go with each of her paintings, and 2 children’s books to help learn their native tongue. Today, she resides in Cape Breton with her husband Elliot Gould and all their children Dakota Jay, Shianne Snow, Savannah Sipu, Phoenix Lee, Ivy Blue, and Montanna Sky.

TBA

Spotlight Project

Lumiere Arts Festival 2024 // The Art of Caring

Lumiere Arts Festival invites artists and community members to reflect on the concept of care.

In a polarized landscape, care can lap like a brook, or pound like large waves crashing ashore. To care is to tend, to root, to rebel, to share and to endure. This year, the festival is encouraging artists to submit works rooted in solidarity, with community building as resistance, that explores the need to care for ourselves, others, and the earth, both locally and globally. The Lumiere Arts Festival makes space for joy, contemporary art, and meaningful dialogue.

Land Acknowledgement

Lumière Arts Festival, on behalf of the board, the artists, and the communities we represent, acknowledges that we work, live and play in the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, in Unama’ki Cape Breton, who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial.

We are grateful not only for the strong and ongoing stewardship of these lands we call home, but also for the stories, music, and art that Mi’kmaq people continue to create and share, carrying ancestral voices, sacred teachings, and legacies of interconnectedness and resilience forward into the present and on to the future.

We aspire to reflect that sense of connection between past and present in our festival. We are inspired by L’nu artists to foster connection and self-reflection in our work. We will work to ensure that art is accessible, inclusive, and integrated into public spaces so that we can share our collective stories, recognizing the challenges of our past and imagining brighter futures.

We are all Treaty people.