Arts for Equity: Stephenville Outreach

April 30th- May 4th, 2026

Arts For Equity

After beginning our Arts for Equity outreach in the metropolitan region of St. John’s, travelling west to Corner Brook, and visiting the Big Land through Happy Valley-Goose Bay, our journey continued in May 2026 to Newfoundland’s southwest coast. This time, the Arts for Equity team travelled to Stephenville and Stephenville Crossing to listen, learn, and connect with artists creating within the region.

Stephenville holds a fascinating history. From its early beginnings as a fishing settlement to its transformation following the establishment of an American air force base during the Second World War, the community has continued to evolve. Today, organizations and initiatives such as the Stephenville Theatre Festival contribute to a vibrant cultural landscape shaped by the many communities and traditions of the southwest coast. It was a natural next step in our province-wide research.

Meeting the Artists of the Southwest Coast

Our outreach began by connecting with local administration and Qalipu First Nation, helping us expand our research and build relationships with artists working across different disciplines. Four artists ultimately welcomed us into their lives and practices.

They came from different backgrounds, generations, identities, and artistic disciplines, but common threads quickly emerged: a deep relationship with the land, a desire to pass knowledge to future generations, and a belief in the ability of art to strengthen community.

Perhaps one of the most important lessons from our time in Stephenville was simple: geographic isolation does not mean an absence of talent.

Our conversations instead revealed the immense amount of work artists in smaller and rural communities undertake to sustain their practices, create opportunities, preserve traditions, and contribute to the places they call home.

And these conversations did not happen around a conference table.

The artists welcomed us into their homes, studios, sheds, and workplaces, allowing us to see where their work actually takes shape. Across filmmaking, stained glass, photography, furniture restoration, beadwork, and other traditional practices, each visit offered a different window into what it means to build an artistic life outside the province’s largest urban centre.

We met Evan Butler, filmmaker and co-founder of the Sandy Point Independent Film Festival. His work demonstrated another way artists in the region are not simply waiting for opportunities to arrive—they are creating spaces where film, storytelling, and community can come together.

With Matthew Perrier, we saw how artistic practice can carry family history forward. Matthew works in beadwork alongside other traditional practices, and one object in particular captured our attention: a foraging basket that has evolved across generations. Beginning with wood used by his grandfather, adapted by his father, and now remodelled by Matthew himself, the basket carries the marks of multiple generations within a single object.

Trudy Scott, a veteran and stained-glass artist, welcomed us into the shed where she creates intricate stained-glass pieces. Our conversation moved beyond the work itself, touching on community, life experience, and the different ways creativity continues to find a place within a person’s life.

With Simone Hunt, we encountered creativity in more forms than we expected. Through Bakeapple Photography, Simone captures people and moments of connection through her lens. But inside her home, we discovered another creative practice: furniture restoration and remodelling. Pieces throughout the space had been carefully customized, revealing an artistic eye extending well beyond photography.

Across all four conversations, we encountered artists who were finding their own ways forward despite the barriers that can accompany geography, access, representation, and the realities of sustaining an artistic practice.

Their stories reminded us that supporting equity in the arts cannot only mean inviting artists into spaces that already exist. Sometimes, it also means recognizing and supporting the spaces, traditions, networks, and opportunities that communities are already building for themselves.

Before beginning our journey home, the trip took us a little farther—to Cape St. George on the Port au Port Peninsula, a community deeply connected to the province’s Francophone heritage.

There, we had an unexpected opportunity to witness a Sunday evening community dance and experience another expression of the traditions that continue to bring people together across generations. It was a fitting way to end our time on the southwest coast.

We arrived in Stephenville looking to better understand what it means to create art away from the province’s largest cultural centre. We left having seen homes become studios, sheds become workshops, family objects become living archives, and artists become builders of their own creative communities. As we travelled home, we carried those conversations with us.

Stephenville reminded us that keeping art alive also means keeping traditions, knowledge, relationships, and communities alive.