If you like the arts , then the next couple of weeks are for you to celebrate all kinds of arts  during the last part of September— the Month of the Artist.

 Arts Days 2023 opens with the AAC Arts Days Cabaret at casa, Friday, Sept. 22 from 7-9 p.m. with local musicians the Decadent Phase and Peace For Bombs.

Kelaine Devine, Eric Dyck and  Luka de Haan with be  creating art inspired by the performances.

It is also the  launch of Trap/Door Artist Run Collective’s new exhibit  “Carrying Baggage”  featuring works by Seema Karchoo, Heather Kehoe, Harley Morman, Kalina Nedelcheva, Arianna Richardson, Noble Seggie.

 And artists  Solange Roy and Kylie FineDay will be answering questions about their art in the casa square kiosks.

“Art is not a passive thing, we are all part of  the art scene. Arts Days is about engaging in the ares in a new way,” said Kelaine Devine, Allied Arts council communications coordinator.

One of the cornerstone events of ArtsDays is Word on the Street which happens on Saturday , Sept. 23 outside the Lethbridge Public Library featuring food trucks, workshops and live music and plenty of authirs and playwrights  exploring fiction, non fiction,  teen and youth literature and much more. 

 There is no art walk again this year, instead 19 artists will begin creating  murals on the windows of downtown businesses beginning today ( Sept. 21) as part of the Downtown Lens: Window Mural Gallery running Sept. 21-24.

“ That will allow you to ask the artists questions about their work and watch them  creating,” Devine said.

“ They’re temporary. The idea is that  the work is temporal and fleeting. Though some businesses have asked to keep the murals up in the past,” Devine said.

 Arts Days encompasses a lot of different group’s activities including the Geomatic Attic’s Sept. 27 presentation of Dan Mangan at the Yates theatre/ Sterndale Bennett Theatre , the  Lethbridge OnScreen  film festival,  and several events associated with the Waking Death exhibit that opened at casa a couple weeks ago.

And  the the SAAG (Southern Alberta Art Gallery.) RECLAIM Art Residency workshop, Sept. 23 from 1-4 p.m. Arts Days also includes the first performance of the season for the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra’s Musaeus, who celebrate the works of Schubert and Mozart, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Southminster United Church. Tickets are $35 regular and $10 for students. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

 There will be  a lot of interactive programs including an orange  shirt day workshop, Sunday, Sept. 23 at casa from 1-4 p.m. p.m. where you can create your own orange shirt.

Public Art: Big Ideas, on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 3 p.m. is an a opportunity to talk to artists Leila Armstrong, Brendan Browne, Kylie Fineday, and April Matisz about their new permanent murals around downtown and watch some a movie about  the murals’ creation.

 More information about ArtsDays activities is available at https://artslethbridge.org/arts-days/.

— By Richard Amery , L.A. Beat Editor