What was intended to be a soul journey turned into a soul-sucking nightmare for a pair of Metro Vancouver artists after their works were recently stolen from a Vancouver church.
Katie Stein Sather and Karen Johnson were slated to open up a textile arts and quilting show called Soul Journey at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, located at West 49th Avenue and Oak Street, on Oct. 23.
The pair arrived early that day to set up for the show and realized nine of their pieces had been stolen, along with other personal information, including pricing lists.
The pair valued those nine pieces in the range of $5,000 and had to cancel the show entirely after the break in.
“I think we were both in shock for the whole day,” Johnson said. “Dealing with it was one thing, but then people started arriving and having to tell all these people about what had happened was difficult.”
That the pricing lists and personal effects were also stolen leads the pair to believe the art was specifically targeted for re-sale.
Metro Vancouver has seen a rash of art-specific thefts in the last five years. Earlier this year a studio in the South Granville Street district was targeted and an oil painting reportedly worth around $4,000 was stolen.
In 2013, more than $100,000 worth of First Nations art was targeted in Gastown. A Golden Maltese Falcon worth close to $10 million was stolen in Ladner in late May.
Vancouver Police Department media liaison Const. Brian Montague was unable to quantify the volume of art-related thefts in the city, though he said those incidences are rare.
Reuniting owners with their art, however, can be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
“When you compare [art theft] to car theft for example, the numbers are far easier to track and the stolen items much easier to identify and return to the owner because of identification numbers,” Montague said. “In cases with stolen art, if pieces are recovered, it can often be years later, and when suspicious art items are found by police it is far more challenging to confirm the items are in fact stolen and who the rightful owner is.”
Montague noted the theft likely occurred on either Oct. 19 or 20. There were no signs of forced entry and no alarm was triggered, leading police to believe the theft happened while the church was open.
As of Oct. 28, no witnesses, suspect descriptions, or video footage was available to assist the VPD’s investigation.
Johnson and Stein Sather put more than 500 hours’ worth of work collectively into their stolen pieces. Both are retired and don’t necessarily rely on art-related income to keep them afloat financially.
But $5,000 is $5,000, and now they’re contemplating how, and if, they’ll display their work in the future.
“Certainly I will think about the level of security at venues that I will go to in the future,” Stein Sather said. “That is the biggest disappointment, that the show is not out there for people to see. That is why I make stuff — for people to see it.”
Images of the pair’s stolen works can be found online at lostquilt.com.
