The Lunchbox Interview: Drew Budovich (2nd Open Arts Gathering)

What does the arts community mean to you?

You might be a visual artist, looking for ways to connect to your community.

You might be a musician looking for ways to reach out and learn from those more established than yourself.

You might be a veteran performer, looking to mentor others.

You might be a fan, wanted to make this vibrant community even better.

No matter what your take is on it, one of the great signs of an active community is the gathering together of people and ideas in a communication space. Earlier this year, one of these events occurred, called the Open Arts Gathering. Tonight, the second one is underway as I type.

Today on the Lunchbox I spoke with Drew “Dee” Budovich, a member of the Shifty Bits Cult, a Fredericton-based arts collective that is partnering with Connection ARC and others to stimulate arts-based community conversations at the second Open Arts Gathering. We talked about the success of the first Gathering earlier this year, and some of Dee’s hopes for tonight’s installment.

Music today:

Celebrating the warmer weather come, I played a song by Heat called susifine, from Rooms album.
Post-interview, the message was clear: there’s a lot to love about this city, and that drives art. We heard Rich Aucoin‘s take on the City I Love, from his Ephemeral album.
And at the end we heard just a snippet from Elephant Skeletons‘ wonderful Vol III called Handlines.