Chaos behind the scenes at the Penticton Art Gallery spilled into the open Monday night, as the dwindling board of directors faced a packed room of peeved members demanding answers about a precarious future. Six board directors sat and stood at the front of the main gallery, facing a standing-room o...
Chaos behind the scenes at the Penticton Art Gallery spilled into the open Monday night, as the dwindling board of directors faced a packed room of peeved members demanding answers about a precarious future.
Six board directors sat and stood at the front of the main gallery, facing a standing-room only house filled with paying members of the non-profit society as well as interested members of the public.
They were there for what the board called an "information session," following a tumultuous few months that saw multiple board and staff members resign, and two high profile layoffs — curator and executive director Paul Crawford and gift shop coordinator Karen Walls.
Background provided by Frank Regehr, who has been on the gallery board for just four months, was that after emergency Covid-19 relief funding ended, the gallery faced increased costs from salaries they had chosen to bump up during that time when the bank account was flush, as well as a lack of sufficient fundraising.
He claimed the problem was "discovered" in 2024, leading to three staff layoffs. Then in 2025, it was the same situation.
"In this case, the board chose to temporarily lay off the executive director for 13 weeks because that salary had the biggest impact on the bottom line," he said, referring to Crawford.
Longtime gift shop coordinator Karen Walls was permanently laid off.
According to the board, the "temporary" layoff was with Crawford's consent — a characterization Crawford disputes.
The board also said $65,000 has been the average monthly operational cost to run the gallery since the Covid funds.
That was the board's story. Then the members in the room had questions, including former employees.
Call for change
Two former gallery communications coordinators, Chelsea Terry and Anne Ramey, stood up to represent a coalition of voting gallery members asking for a formal Special General Meeting, where a vote could be held to replace the board.
Terry called out the lack of organization of the informational meeting — no handouts with specific financial documentation, for example.
She also said the coalition has questions about the layoffs.
"What was the [board's] rationale behind the decision making process that led to the layoffs of multiple key staff members, crippling the gallery's operations, at a time when you were meant to be making money?" Terry asked.
"With the exodus of board members and staff and a pervasive lack of transparency, how do you plan to address the clear breakdown in government and restore trust in the board?"
Ramey shared her own experience, running fundraisers while feeling entirely unsupported by the board, and asking questions that went unanswered.
"Why were staff left alone?" Ramey asked.
"Most of the board is new [as of spring 2025], but the urgency of the state of the gallery had to be known when members joined this board, and to not hear from you guys at all, running into the art auction was terrifying and exhausting for staff. Education [coordinator Shawna Morrow] quit on stress leave. I quit because the uncertainty of a paycheck was not something I could sustain. This is not a new problem. What was the plan?"
Board on defence
Board director Bob Doull said before the meeting all of the directors "prepared [their] resignations," and are "prepared to step aside."
He said: "We're not here to try to impede what you want to do. We've done our best [...] We're happy to step aside if you can compose a board and carry this place on. Great. We're happy."
Doull also outlined what the current plan is moving forward, if the board status quo remains — namely, replacing administrative director Julia Snow, who is leaving in weeks, and Crawford.
"We have dealt with real instability because what we thought was happening is a little different than what has actually happened. And we did not know [Crawford] was not coming back," Doull said.
Crawford disputes this. He maintains he never signed a temporary layoff document, only a form agreeing to relinquish his keys on a set date, and in late August he sent a letter through his lawyer suggesting intent to pursue legal action against the gallery for constructive dismissal.
Some members in attendance asked for clarity about the financial situation, to which Regehr replied they are not in debt, but have a "limited capacity" to have an overdraft at the bank before grants come in next year.
Doull added that the financial situation is going to change their ability to attract new hires for the administrative and executive director positions.
"We're gonna have to set these positions at lower rates of pay than they have been. And so, yeah, it's going to be hard. It's especially difficult because it is so unstable, and it's so obviously unstable, and there is so much noise that, you know, all we can do is try," he said.
Director Blair Romando, another newcomer to the board, defended the situation.
"We came into a mess," Romando said.
"We've actually lost a couple of directors in the last little bit just because of the amount of work that they were doing."
The missing curator
Paul Crawford is disappointed by what he characterizes as "constructive dismissal" over the course of the past year, a "concerted effort to make [his] job intolerable" that led up to the layoff this summer.
Crawford said that he felt increasingly boxed out of meetings relevant to gallery operations, ignored and unsupported by members of the board, and ultimately floored by a layoff notice slipped across the desk to him one August day.
"I find it shocking that they wouldn't have at least sat me down beforehand and said, let's go through what you do. Tell us about your planning. Show us what grants you write," he said.
"What's your planning? What's your methodology? What are the obligations for each of these grants? Never once did they ever ask me to come in and talk to me about the day-to-day operations of the gallery, which I find absolutely remarkable."
He said he never signed formal temporary layoff paperwork, and disputes the gallery's claim that his layoff was about the financial bottom line.
"If it was about the money in August, then why would you let the person go who does 95 per cent of your grant writing, 100 per cent, at a high level, of the fundraisers and 100 per cent of the programming for exhibitions and all that, which is a requirement of grant funding? Seems odd to me," Crawford said.
He is worried about the future of the gallery, which he loves, and feels the board does not understand all that he and others on staff poured into keeping everything running. Crawford is filing a civil lawsuit regarding his dismissal.
"It's not about taking down the gallery," Crawford said.
"I put 20 years of my life into it, [the lawsuit] is about standing up for all [non-profit arts organization] executive directors that put their lives into these organizations and they get dumped out on the sidewalk with no regard or anything by a board, as well-intentioned as it may be, that has no idea about what people put into their organizations."
What now for the gallery?
Ideas pitched by gallery members at the meeting Monday included a patronage or sponsorship program and actively seeking donations from wealthy local individuals — but first and foremost, a Special General Meeting to potentially shake up the board and get things on track.
Passion for the gallery itself was clear in the room, as well as a sense of betrayal.
"I don’t feel safe donating to this organization anymore even though fiscally you’re not in the red yet,” said one person.
"I’m still rather overwhelmed with the fact that you [the board] did not come to the membership when you put out your press release and told us that you were letting go the two people who were most able to keep money coming in,” said another.
"You can’t keep the gallery open with just volunteers,” said another, referring to the fact that as of November, there will only be one remaining staff member on the payroll.
The lack of manpower will mean even less revenue coming in — while the annual fall Soup Bowls fundraiser is good to go, a planned Christmas fair that director Romando estimated would have raised between $30,000 and $40,000 has been axed.
The future of some other events is unclear too, although the Ignite the Arts festival remains green lit for spring 2026.
At the end of Monday's meeting, the board committed to holding a Special General Meeting at an as-yet undetermined date. Terry and Ramey collected member signatures to force the board to hold to that promise.
As for Crawford, the curator job seems to be in his rearview mirror, regardless of who sits on the board.
"I'm proud of my work, I have no regrets of anything that I've done in the gallery, or any of the stuff that we did as a community," Crawford said, adding he will continue with Ignite the Arts and will always be willing to lend a hand with art gallery projects.
"But also, maybe it's time for someone else to run with it."