Mad & Noisy announces new owners
Creemore’s Mad & Noisy Gallery entered a new era on Thursday, becoming a privately owned for-profit business for the first time in its nine-year history.
Lyne Burek, who has worked as the gallery’s administrator for the past three years, has now assumed ownership in partnership with her husband Richard.
Signing over the business to the Bureks were departing board members Gail Caswell, Jim Stacey and Peter Adams. The gallery, until now a non-profit artist’s co-operative, announced last November that it was interested in selling the business.
“This feels like a natural evolution, to go from a co-op to a for-profit gallery,” said Adams, one of the gallery’s founding artists. “Nine years ago, we had all these ideas of a community gallery that also offered workshops, and concerts, and all kinds of outreach. None of that would have been possible without Trillium funding, and the Purple Hills Arts & Heritage Society, and a bunch of great volunteers. But these days, there are so many arts events and happenings in the village – it feels like the right time to have someone who can focus on the business of the gallery and selling art.”
With Richard in semi-retirement from a career with Rogers Communications and Lyne having spent three years getting to know the gallery and its artists, the Stayner-based Bureks said this seemed like the perfect opportunity for them.
“There are a lot of positives,” said Richard. “Lyne knows the artists and has a keen sense of art itself, and I’ll be supporting her in the background. We’ve been thinking about starting some sort of business in this area, and we decided we could do this – especially because the investment is a lot of hard work as opposed to a great deal of money.”
The Bureks will be contacting the 50 or so artists on the gallery roster this week, and hope to retain as many as possible under a new membership agreement and a 50/50 commission structure. They also said they planned to continue with many of the gallery’s community-based programs, including CreemoreCentric, the annual January show and silent auction that will be the subject of an auction-ending cocktail party this Saturday, January 26.
As a parting comment, Adams made sure to mention three people who were essential in the founding of the gallery nine years ago – Jim Vandewater, Paul Ruppel and Ernie Purkis. “There are countless people who contributed to this effort over the years, from board members to artists to community members at large,” he said. “But if I had to pick three names, it would be those three.”
The official date for the transfer of the business will be Friday, February 1. An official announcement and introduction will take place at this Saturday’s CreemoreCentric cocktail party, taking place from 5 to 7 pm. Bidding on the CreemoreCentric art ends at 3 pm on Sunday, January 27.
Pictured above are new Mad & Noisy owners Richard and Lyne Burek and departing board members Gail Caswell, Peter Adams and Jim Stacey.
