Sylvia Antinozzi

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Sylvia Antinozzi lives this motto in her first language. “N’oublie jamais de chanter, danser et créer.” “Never forget to sing, dance and create.” She lives this in Italian too, at the Davedi Club.
Born of French Canadian and Italian parents in Montreal, young Sylvia danced the tarantella with her Aunt Angelina at family parties, this same Aunt who had the creativity to return to school in her seventies after raising her siblings and her children. In French school, Sylvia and her sisters Gina and Anna knew what it was to be singled out as Italian in a French neighbourhood and to be super neat-and-clean as well as super creative to avoid abuse.

Creativity shone in Sylvia’s earliest paintings of the Quebec landscape and continues to this day in multimedia art, pottery, poster design, written skits and plays for Les Compagnons and curating for BRAVO-Centre exhibitions. She crisscrossed Canada for years with her popular art workshops on tole painting.

Creativity needs organisation for it to be productive. Sylvia developed business skills in her work at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal (taking university courses at night) then as a facilitator for air traffic control in Cornwall.

Jim Woods met Sylvia there 32 yrs ago and promised that his military career would bring frequent moves. They moved every 2 years and Sylvia danced, sang and created on many military bases. Daughter Kassandra wished fervently that they would stay in North Bay for school, and that happened when Jim reached Captain status. Kassandra is now in Victoria, completing a Masters Degree in Indigenous Governance. Sylvia and Jim continue their travels, to her in Canada and also worldwide….Egypt, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

In North Bay she has volunteered as organiser of the cultural center Les Compagnons’s annual singing competition, cantor for mass at St. Vincent de Paul, chair of the Advisory Committee for the WKP Kennedy Gallery, organiser of Nuit Blanche event and, this year, the chair of the Christmas

Lunch Celebration for hundreds of people at the ProCathedral of the Assumption.
Fostering creativity in young people is a passion with Sylvia and she volunteers as visual arts teacher, singing coach, museum guide, and pottery workshop leader in her English and French communities.

What about the Italian Community? She ran the café to the craft show for years making the food and organizing schedules. She ran the Craft show, finding and organizing vendors, organized the food bank to come and pick up the food brought by the clients, for nearly 10 years. Sylvia also convened the spaghetti dinner and the bake sale. She produced many posters and tickets. Made Videos of ojr members,These being the most important work she has done for us. Sylvia’S work in the community was recognized in 2016 for the order of merit presented by the davedi.

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