Every year, the Canadian Mental Health Association offers a special calendar to Saskatchewan to help raise money for various mental health programs in the province.

The calendar includes various poems and other pieces of art that are submitted by Saskatchewan citizens, and for next year, one work will have come right out of Biggar!

While she only received an honorable mention last year, Joyce Wirachowsky finally had one of her pieces of art chosen for the 2021 calendar. Wirachowsky explained that she had known about her placement in the calendar for about a month and a half, but was asked not to say anything until the calendars were ready to be printed.

Joyce first heard about the calendar through Facebook, and shared her reason to get involved.

"Everybody's mental health is pretty important, so I decided to give it a shot, and there it is! When they phoned me and said that it had placed, I said "Oh! I made it to a month instead of an honorable mention like last year," she said that when they do the selection, there is no name, so they wouldn't have known that it was me again."

Joyce had submitted three paintings in total, and the one that was chosen ended up being picked for the month of October, which she said even the CMHA thought was a good fit.

"Well it kinda fit their criteria too. They were looking for Saskatchewan themes, and so that's "Life in Saskatchewan," and they said that the old elevator fit the bill, and they liked it."

 

Joyce has only been doing art for around 3 years, first getting started back in 2017. She is well versed in using alcohol inks, and has also used encaustic wax in her art. She was kind enough to share how she first got started in the art world.

"I took an online course, and it was a six week course. Well first of all, when I started, I took a little introductory course in Saskatoon at River House Gallery. So I saw this class, and I really liked it, and part of the class was on encaustics, and I started working with it, and boy I really liked it!"

The CMHA only has around 9,000 calendars available, and are still a long way from reaching their $50,000 goal. Along with the calendar, various other prizes and 50/50 draws are available to take part in.

 

Here are the other two pictures that Joyce had submitted: