Art as life

“My parents were great lovers of art,” said Connie Artym-Bradatsch of the Artym Gallery in Invermere, B.C. “My father was an artist who painted, and sculpted in bronze and stone. I fell in love with art at a very young age.”

As a young adult, Artym-Bradatsch moved from her family home in Athabasca in northern Alberta to Banff, to work at the Marikas Gallery, which was owned by a relative. That summer job turned into a continued career in art and art galleries.

Dream location?

Some years later—persuaded by clients in Calgary, Alberta, that a fine art gallery would do well in Invermere—Artym-Bradatsch and her husband, Grey, visited Invermere. She had holidayed in the area previously, but this time she had a whole new perspective. Could Invermere be a backdrop for her dream?

“Our first visit here as a couple was on a Wednesday in mid-February, and it was grim,” Artym-Bradatsch said, laughing. “We were the only customers in the restaurant where we had dinner. I went back to Calgary and phoned those clients and asked them if maybe they were crazy!”

However, the seed was planted. After a year of research, and with the encouragement of friends, the couple left their jobs in Calgary, sold everything they owned, moved to Invermere and opened the Artym Gallery in 2000. It was very quickly apparent that the couple had indeed picked an ideal location.

“We were open for just one month, and there was such a strong positive response that we went from opening five days a week to being open every day,” Artym-Bradatsch said. “We had to hire full-time staff right away. It’s been incredible—we only close for two days a year.”

Admittedly, the majority of visitors to the gallery are not permanent residents of Invermere, or even of the Columbia Valley. Through their own community involvement and contributions, however, the Bradatsches continue to work at attracting the local population to the gallery.

In business for the love of it

Every week, Artym-Bradatsch spends an evening reconfiguring the displays in the gallery.

“I turn the music up loud and everything comes down,” she said. “I rehang and re-display everything, and not once do I think, ‘I’m doing this because I want to sell this stuff.’ I’m a farm girl. My family didn’t have a lot, so when we travelled to galleries it was just to see the art and appreciate it, and that’s our whole reason for having this gallery. Art makes you alive.”