At 3:20 am on Nov. 4th I was awakened by the gallery’s alarm monitoring company and informed that the alarms were on at the gallery. By 3:30 am, as I approached the gallery, the nature of the emergency was clear. Smoke obscured vision for blocks around the gallery. I walked to within 50 ft of the gallery and then spent the next  hour watching 20 to 30 fire fighters attempt to save the gallery from destruction, to no avail. The gallery burnt to the ground. It was like a dream.

Many artworks were stored at the gallery and most were destroyed in the fire. The images exist now only in digital form.

I had 150 pieces of my artworks stored at the gallery. I am ecstatic to report that 90 pieces survived the fire unscathed. It’s a bit of a miracle really. After the fire was all over and the backhoe was crunching everything into rubble, on a hunch I asked the operator to dig in the print drawer area at the front of the gallery.  I had 90 of my works on paper stored in a bottom drawer of a storage desk. He dug down through about 3 feet of cinder and wires and tar-soaked char and, incredibly, the drawer was still intact. And not a mark on my artwork. They survived the flames intact!

I am glad to let you know that nothing much has changed in my understanding of the Millennium Art Gallery mission, except that we have changed our business address and, for the near future, we will not have any physical space to exhibit art in Vancouver. Millennium Art Gallery will indeed make it into the next Millennium.

We Are One!

R.L. Johnson

Artist’s Comments on the Destruction of the
Millennium Art Gallery:

Mila Kostic - Artist/Painter

"Millennium Art Gallery was my first commercial gallery; you always remember your first one! I feel like I belong in that community…I could receive exhibition, support by other artists, comments and feedback by the public…I am so shocked and disappointed by the tragedy."

Caitlin Johnston - Photographer

"I was so sad when I heard of the fire; the destruction of something so creative....That sort of senseless stuff affects a lot of people. I saw Rick on TV and I was amazed at his taking it in, in a holistic way, wanting to make something positive from it...I thought, right on! ...at least as a photographer I still have my negatives; but a painter, you can never have the same emotion - the same experience -it’s just gone. My four year old son even had a sense of the gallery as a place to go, a friendly place; he was shocked when we walked past the rubble."

Erin Bulycz - Artist/Painter

"Millennium Art Gallery was a very, very intense organization. Intensely creative people, artist and non-artists, human to human. It can draw you in. It’s friendly…I was impressed by the strong focus on ‘getting it out there’- not just to the immediate community, even though the shows had such a casual focus …Near the end, when I saw how many paintings were hanging -like all over the place, I realized it totally fit; Intense creativity and focus."

Charles Fawcett -Sculptor

"Artists gave us our Gods, the pictures we have today…The Animatic Art Movement is alive; a child crying out to grow and evolve, to express itself, to be present, strong and healthy; the dream is ‘We Are One’ – as creative creatures, this is who we are, this is what we do."

Valerie Mallinson -Volunteer/Artist

"The Millennium Art Gallery was for me, emotionally, spiritually, artistically and socially nourishing. Our animatic community needs another space soon, where one can just walk up to the artworks and be in touch with art -as it happens."