A group of artists and art lovers gathered at Café 349 in Shawville on Aug. 14 to celebrate this month’s exhibit titled Reflections on Water, on display at the café. 

The exhibit brings together the works of nine Ottawa Valley artists that somehow depict or offer their reflections on their own connections to the water. 

Pieces were created using a variety of media, including acrylic and oil paints, linocuts, gelli plates, and fibres. 

This exhibit, which will run until Aug. 30, is the latest the Café is hosting in its gallery space. Each month, the artwork carefully hung inside Café 349 changes. 

It’s an opportunity for artists to showcase their work and potentially sell it, while simultaneously providing art for the cafe, said Cheryl Beillard, who manages the gallery alongside Linda Roy.

The monthly shows are a mix of collaborative or individual shows. Depending on the artist’s wishes, they will host a vernissage, a viewing of the paintings, at the café. 

This month marked the pair’s one-year anniversary of organizing the initiative together, a continuation of a program started by artPontiac.

Roy said this group offers opportunities for the artists and the community in a number of ways, highlighting that last May, they were approached by the Pontiac Archives, which had recently found a number of decades-old graduation photos from Pontiac High School. They then hung the photos on the walls of the café for a month.