KITCHENER – A longtime feature in the Uptown Waterloo arts community is celebrating a quarter century.
Button Factory Arts, a non-profit arts centre, offers studio and exhibit space, a gallery, rental space and a gift shop.
It became an arts centre in 1994.
The current exhibit celebrating the anniversary is called Loose Buttons/Tight Seams, an annual juried exhibit.
The exhibit's curator, Ernest Daetwyler, invited artists to reflect on their current position in the world.
"As it is our 25th anniversary we thought it would be a good idea to ask artists, 'where are we now?'" explains Allie Brenner, an artist at the centre.
She says that environmental and climate issues are front and centre this year, while things like identity and nature play a role, too.
All of the artists featured at the exhibit are working in southern Ontario.
Brenner herself created what she calls a memory lightbox sculpture of Button Factory Arts.
"This piece specifically was in celebration of Button Factory Arts' 25th anniversary, so I was able to have access to the archives and take little bits and pieces and images and create a digital collage, which I then turned into an acrylic lightbox," she explains.
Button Factory Arts is also hosting an arts market on Nov. 16. The gallery will be transformed into a large gift shop to peruse before Christmas.
