Almost two years after the Fort McMurray wildfire, artists, performers and filmmakers haven't recovered and some have packed up and left.
Sharon Heading has interviewed 80 artists within the Wood Buffalo region and estimates about 20 have left the community and more might depart.
"[The wildfire] created any number of problems," Heading said in an interview. "We lost a really good number of artists."
In January, Heading produced a report for the Arts Recovery Working Group, which is made up of people invested in the arts and the recovery after the wildfire.
She said the local arts community was already struggling to survive but the wildfire exacerbated the fragile financial situation many artists sometimes find themselves in.
Heading spoke with artists who lost their homes, musicians and filmmakers who didn't have insurance and couldn't get equipment replaced after the wildfire, and artists who didn't have space to work on their pieces.
Others were casualties of the economic downturn before and after the wildfire. Some, Heading said, had partners who lost jobs and as a result their art has taken a back seat.
'Fort McMurray has regressed 10 to 15 years'
Kizzie Sutton left Fort McMurray in July 2017 for Canmore.
Sutton, who worked in theatre lighting and arts administration in her spare time, was laid off by the Wood Buffalo municipality from her job as a community services co-coordinator in a round of cost-cutting after the wildfire.
"I think the arts community in Fort McMurray will survive. It may not thrive in the way that it was. It will take a number of years to get it back to where it was before the wildfire," Sutton said. "It's a bit sad that Fort McMurray has regressed 10 to 15 years."
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Heading said the report's findings and recommendations have received support from Wood Buffalo's new council.
The report recommends building an arts and culture centre or hub in an existing facility, but in the immediate term it suggests creating studio space where painters, sculptors, carvers and all artists can work on projects.
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