Photo-based artist Esther Rausenberg has opened her Strathcona studio every year for the Eastside Culture Crawl. Not this weekend, however. As the new executive director of the city’s premier visual-arts event, Rausenberg will be far too busy attempting to reach each participating artist, though she knows she almost certainly won’t be able to get to them all.

The Crawl—which runs Thursday to Sunday (November 14 to 17)—is bigger than ever this year, with 418 artists in 83 buildings. “The growth has been absolutely mind-boggling,” says Rausenberg, interviewed in a Gastown café. “My studio is in the Paneficio, one of the three original buildings used. Things got started in 1994 with fundraisers for individuals—people with AIDS, people going to Clayoquot Sound, and a group of musicians in our neighbourhood whose house burned down—but we didn’t get our name and become a society until 1997. Establishing that was crucial to the success of the organization today.”

One year Rausenberg did a count of visitors to her small studio. “We had 4,000 people come through. We don’t know what the numbers are for the whole event today, but we do know that we print 30,000 programs and that they disappear.”

The 17th edition of the Crawl begins a day earlier than usual to help deal with the volume. “We’re bursting at the seams,” says Rausenberg. “So some studios are opening on Thursday evening from 6 to 9. I suggest people go to our website if they’re looking for a particular artist. I think we’re going to have to revisit our opening hours—the public wants more, and some artists too. This is a pilot to see the response.”

Around 100 artists are participating in the special studio preview, and that’s not all that’s new. “We also have two exhibits that are already open. At the Firehall Arts Centre there are works by artists that are new to the Crawl, and at the Cultch there’s a drawing show, pushing the boundaries of what drawing might mean, that runs to December 16.”

Rausenberg feels the Crawl’s public has also grown in another sense. “People have become very well educated. That’s one of the milestones that perhaps gets overlooked. Over the years they’ve developed the language and acquired an eye in terms of the art they’re seeing. They’ve come to expect more, and really do appreciate art that’s well executed, meaningful, and powerful. They also appreciate the emerging artists. We’ve seen a definite increase in the desire to experience, see, and understand the visual arts and creativity in this city.”

The artists too have been learning. “From the conversations I have there’s an engagement, an exchange, a dialogue with the public that they don’t often find—even when they’re exhibiting in a gallery there isn’t that kind of opportunity for discussion, or for the public to hear what the artist’s intentions are in terms of the work being put out.”

Looking ahead, Rausenberg sees exciting potential developments for the ECC, though she’s well aware of the challenge of finding financial support. “We’re a lean organization. I’m the only staff person, and that’s part-time. So it does restrict what you’re able to do. But we’re rethinking who we are, and possibly refining some of the areas we might program. I really want us to establish a visual-arts, craft, and design festival—there are very few in the world, the best-known is the Venice Biennale.

“The open studios would be a strong pillar of that, but I’m looking at the possibility of some installations, projections, billboards, those kind of things. Of course, all of that depends on whether there’s funding. I’d like to enhance the environment people walk into when they come within the boundaries of the Crawl—so they get a full art experience, so they feel it and see it everywhere.”