MARINE Drive's bus shelters could be turned into a public art gallery if Mark Sager gets his way.
The lawyer and former mayor of West Vancouver launched the fundraising drive called Curbside: Bringing Art to the Streets Dec. 17 in the hopes of raising enough money to buy ads for the two weeks the Harmony Arts Festival runs in August to display upand-coming West Vancouver artists.
With enough donations, he said, they could even set up a permanent display.
"We have some incredibly talented, really talented artists, and the hope is we can kick this off next summer as part of the Harmony Arts Festival," said Sager, before he added: "If I'm successful, maybe we can do this year-round.
"Wouldn't that be wonderful?" he asked. "I can dream."
Pattison Outdoor signed a 20-year contract with the district in the spring to build and maintain the shelters, but their construction in late summer elicited vocal opposition from some members of the community, including several who wrote letters to the North Shore News.
Tom Bunting, a member of the district's design review committee, was one of those who was upset at the glaring new advertisements, and said this is a good start to making something more positive of the ads.
"I'm all for it," he said, mentioning that Sager had contacted him on the initiative. "It's already there, so maybe this is a different take on it."
Sager launched the idea at a fundraiser Dec. 17 at the Kay Meek Centre, where several members of his family performed and donations were accepted to kickoff the campaign. The initiative is currently accepting donations through his website, www.marksager.com, under the Community Support tab.
The launch also included a YouTube video made by Daniel Wainryb, which involves a dancer transforming ads into art, and can be found by typing the campaign name into the site's search engine.
Sager declined to comment on the details of the agreement and on how much money has been raised so far, but said there is no target amount he hopes to raise.
"There's no final goal, because the more money I can raise - every dime we raise is going to go to making the space available," he said.
Rob Hunt, vice president and general manager of the Pacific Region Vancouver for Pattison Outdoor, said they've been in negotiations with Sager's group but, like Sager, said they haven't confirmed details yet.
"Pattison gets involved in a lot of community kinds of events and organizations; it's not something unusual for us to do; we do it across the country," he said, adding that often means giving preferential rates to get the word out on community events.
"We haven't finalized all the details, but we'll give them, certainly, give them extra help on space where we can."
The space usually sells for about $350 a week, he said, adding it has been extremely popular with advertisers.
