Say what we will about “art prizes” and their relevance, (but we won’t, just now…) it was exciting to read in today’s newspapers about two (2!) women from British Columbia receiving national awards.

Sandra Meigs, a professor at the University of Victoria, was awarded the Gershon Iskowitz Prize yesterday night at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  The $50,000 award is presented annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada. Earlier this year, Ms Meigs was also awarded a Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts.

Sandra Meigs photo by Michelle Alger

Ms Meigs’ latest show, All to All, just closed at the Susan Hobbs Gallery in Toronto.  As part of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, Ms Meigs will present a solo show at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2017.

The 2015 winner of the Margolese National Design for Living Prize is Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.  The national jury called her landscape designs, “…breathtaking, poetic, unforgettable, charged with meaning, and above all, modernist.”

To experience Ms Hahn Oberlander’s work, you have a rich choice of interesting cities to visit.  Besides the New York Times Building in NYC, you could make a trip to Yellowknife, where she designed the Legislative Assembly Building site, or to Vancouver, where she has several projects, including the striking grounds  of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.