
William
Cook
Elementary
Whimsical Garden Project
Project Website of the Creative Cafe Collective Artist Team who are resident until Spring 2022 at William Cook Elementary School, Richmond BC, Canada. Our feature installation is focused around a Four Directions Canoe Garden, but our creative projects will also include eco sculpture, an onsite puppet theatre and in school creative programming.

We acknowledge the ancestral, unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. Richmond is situated on the lands the Musqueam Nation, its people have sustained themselves on the lands and waters since time immemorial.
Our Lead Artists
We have assembled a diverse and talented team of professional working artists to serve the William Cook Elementary School Community in meeting its wellness objectives. To contact the collective please email us jp@jpeachygallery.com

J Peachy – a multi-disciplinary, community-engaged Artist and Creative Producer with diverse experience in facilitating programming. I have developed a wide range of artistic skills often self-taught from community based resources, education and sharing. My expression can come in many forms including face-painting, puppetry, arts-activation, virtual programming, media production and creative pancakes.
see more programming at the artist website

Pat Calihou – “I am a multifaceted artist, carver, woodcrafter, canoe builder and traditional red river cart builder. In addition, I am a singer songwriter and guitar player.” Pat recently completed a 40 Foot York Boat replica that is now installed at Historic Fort Langley.
see more on Pat’s website and facebook page

Yolanda Weeks – artist, facilitator and community worker is about connection; gathering meaning through material, collaborative creation and grassroots projects.
see more of Yolanda’s works here

Melissa West Morrison
“Melissa has one foot in Cedar and another in Bamboo. She is ‘Namgis and Chinese. Melissa facilitates educational and research needs related to Indigenous food security while increasing knowledge of and access to traditional plants and foods. She is a community artist and UBC alumni. Her research focuses includes Indigenous land-based learning, Indigenous feminism, law and decolonial methodologies. Embracing her gift to walk multiple worlds, Melissa explores the mediums of poetry, fashion designing, and drawing to facilitate conversations around mixed-roots identities and to facilitate conversations and opportunities for both communities she is from to meet together, learn more about each other and to create spaces of solidarities to form between all cultures and communities. On a life-long journey of learning the language of plants, Melissa is driven by a community-led approach. Her work is rooted in facilitating educational experiences that centers on supporting self-determining and sustainable communities in the revitalization through a reconnection with the land.”
Participating Artist

Tiffany Yang is a participating community engaged artist, ecologically conscious, organizer and renown community snow sculptor, as reported by the CBC. Tiffany will assist in the implementation of creative workshops.
Indigenous Creative Advisor

Indigenous Artist Simon Winadzi James (Kwakwak’wakw)
will be the Indigenous Creative Advisor to our Whimsical Garden artist team at William Cook Elementary. Mr. James has over 30 years of creative works as a carver, dancer, storyteller and producer. Simon is co-creator of the emmy nominated and award winning animated indigenous storytelling series Raven Tales. He is a favourite with the children in the educational system as his in-school creative work positively influences young lives.
Media
See some media coverage of the artists in the collective
J Peachy
Mental Health and arts advocacy CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/there-isn-t-a-word-for-depression-immigrants-and-mental-health-1.1702475
Georgia Straight Feature
https://www.straight.com/arts/bc-artist-j-peachy-celebrates-jeepney-manilas-king-of-road-in-vancouver-downtown-eastside
Melissa West Morrison
UBC Student Spotlight
https://www.arts.ubc.ca/news/melissa-west-morrison/
Pat Calihou
York Boat Project – Historic Fort Langley
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/metis-yorkboat-parkscanada-fortlangley-1.5442183
Tiffany Yang
Local snow sculpture creations makes news headlines
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/snow-animal-coquitlam-1.5038144