SERENA CHU
The Power of Community

Serena Chu’s art is nearly everywhere you look in the West End — on walls, utility boxes, and tote bags, and at just about every community gathering. You’ve seen her work often, even if you didn’t know it.

Serena — who is originally from Toronto but has lived in the West End for the past 12 years —holds a BFA in mural painting and installation sculpture from York University. Serena works out of an East Vancouver studio where she creates ceramics, designs murals, and teaches art classes.

Serena is also a major presence at the West End Community Centre’s (WECC) pottery studio where she teaches numerous pottery courses, including basket weaving in clay, pottery throwing, handbuilding, and techniques like underglazes and firing glass. This month she will be conducting a two-session workshop making ceramic holiday ornaments (Nov. 9 and 23) and a three-session course on wheel throwing (Nov. 30 and Dec. 4). If they aren’t fully subscribed you may still have time to register.

You would think that would be enough to keep a person busy, but wait — there’s more!

“I’m forever creating things with clay,” Serena said, “and experimenting with new media and generally trying to dabble in as many disciplines as possible.”

“Dabble” doesn’t really seem a fit word to describe the skill and vision that Serena brings to her work, but that’s what she calls it!

Did you help colour in one of the giant murals featured at a Car Free Days and the Strawberry Festival recently? Then you’ve collaborated with Serena in one of her many artistic initiatives, driven by her love of the West End community.

“These past couple of years I’ve really started focusing on community building” she explains. I’ve had some great opportunities to bring that to the neighbourhood I call home. When I first moved to the West End I was already a volunteer for Klippers at the West End Farmer’s Market, where I got to know a lot of people in the community,” Serena said.

“After I created the West End mural for the Strawberry Festival at Barclay Manor everything seemed to fall into place. Word got around and I was approached by the West End Business Improvement Association to create the utility box graphics and tote bags. Since then other businesses have referred me to each other so I could continue to express my love of public art and community,” she told TWEJ.

Like many West End neighbours, Serena loves the diversity of our community, the beautiful natural elements, and the real neighbourly feel of locals saying “hi” to each other. Serena summed up the West End as having “a small community vibe with the convenience of being in an urban centre.”

Serena would have you believe that the creations you see in public spaces and at pottery sales is a sideline. “By trade I am a graphic and web designer who moonlights as an artist in my spare time,” she claims.

One of the many West End Utility boxes featuring Serena’s work.

“I get great energy from spreading joy through art, whether that be from someone sipping their morning coffee from one of my tumblers, teaching a class full of laughing students, or making giant colouring murals and watching everyone turn into a kid again as they colour it in. There is a huge need for positive and fun human interaction and it brings me great joy to facilitate that. Art makes you happy!,” she gushed.

Serena is now a member of the board of directors at the West End Seniors’ Network, where she will focus on membership engagement and other community building initiatives. Her West End designs will soon be featured on bakery boxes for Davie Village Bakery, and TWEJ recently caught up with her at the official re-opening of the HI Vancouver Downtown Hostel on Burnaby Street, where she is talks to add her unique touch to the recently redecorated premises.

So much underway, so much to come. We hope Serena continues to dabble and moonlight around town for many years to come!