The thrill of cracking the lid--

Nothing is so exciting as to open a kiln of glazed work -- and nothing is so depressing if something's gone wrong.  Luckily - this was a great day - new red clay works as a fabulous contrast with all the bright under and over-glazes.  Can hardly wait to share it with the world on Friday's opening!

  --Elaine Brewer-White.

A Joyful Act - Billie Jo Thomson

Some people feel that art should be saying something significant or profound. Sometimes it does. Art is a language. A form of expression. For me, now, it is simply a joyful act. Painting is a part of who I am. I am celebrating my new life of freedom, love and independence. I celebrate it everyday and in celebrating it, I find I am going to things I like to do for the pure joy of it.  Painting is one of those things. Simple, without an agenda other than that.

Loraie Tylor - Wearable art - a passion for fabric and flow

i love cloth and colour.  texture and the vibrations of the spectrum.  i have colourlust.

My work as a designer allows me to indulge these passions..the possibilities are many with even one simple pattern.  one dress in five fabrics is five different dresses.  Natural fibres and handwoven fabrics are my favourite.  Piece-dyeing gives incredible results and a great deal of satisfaction.

In my day job, i am a dresser of dollies.  That is what i do, i refresh the presentation of our styles in the shop weekly, suggesting ways to wear clothes and layer patterns, colours, textures in ways that allow an individuation of style, an expression of personality.  My work is to give options and suggest to the collective conscious what might look perfectly smashing..sending out rockets of desire all around.  It’s a lot of fun and i can be lost in the process. 

I like to work from a drawing, a plan that captures a mood that i hope to create in three-dimensions, with fit, fluidity and a good match of fabric and style.  My designs are simplistic, with a nod to trend, but with a certain respect for timelessness and good looks.  I love the handmade and aim to achieve something of lasting quality.

Not much under the sun is new, but ever-expanding ideas that we can all share...i love that.

Painting in 'joy mode' - Judy Nygren

I received my first camera, from my father, on my 6th birthday.  A little Kodak box camera - never looked back!  From then on I became the photographer/recorder of all family events and holidays.  That all became instrumental in directing me to become a creative being.  I was never without my camera.  My passion was in the process of taking the picture - being "in the moment" - not in seeing the finished product.  I still feel that passion when out in the fields of Pitt Lake or Tofino in the early morning sunshine with my SLR/digital camera.  It is absolutely my joy mode!

My passion for painting arose from a similar place.  I have always loved nature and used to snap many visual photos with my eyes while driving or when I happened to be without my camera.  I used to say that I had square eyes.  I saw everything as a finished portrait or painting.  I began painting from my photographs and later took many painting classes with the Federation of Canadian Artists in Vancouver.

I love to capture the light as it falls on a subject to create a focal point and high contrast.  I cannot resist a subject that is "back lit"  where the intense light shines through a leaf or flower.  I try to capture that feeling of pure joy of light and colour in my paintings.  

Over the years, my work has become less representational and has moved into abstraction.    I try to accentuate parts of my work with linear, stylized drawing with the edge of a flat brush over my finished painting.  It makes the painting sharp in contrast and interesting in design which I can't get enough of.  It feels great to draw lines with the brush of varied curves and thicknesses to create attention to detail.  Currently, I am enjoying going back to representation painting from still life.  I'm re-training my eye to "see" exactly what I am looking at and reproduce that image from life.  It is exillarating (sp) to capture just the right value or the warm or cool of a colour to make the subject sing.... once again I continue to live in the Joy Mode when in my studio.

Elaine Brewer-White - 30 year love affair...with clay!

New red clay - first firing!
So exciting to open the kiln - it's like Xmas morning!!

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I’ve had a love affair with clay for 30 years (my husband’s says he’s not jealous…!) Since art school,  clay  has been the most versatile medium around.  I’ve done gallery installations, designed fireplaces, built life-size figures, and created numerous portrait sculptures (including David Suzuki as a gnome!) It’s just recently I’ve come up against this over-whelming urge – to use clay to for useful objects!  The act of making a mug or bowl, that someone will hold and caress has introduced me to a whole new world of delight. (What my pottery friends have known all along!)  I’ve discovered that making useful items holds the same resonance as creating a complicated sculpture.  It is in the intimate act of creation that I can transmit my same reasons for art-making . Viva la CLAY! -- Here's to the next 30 years!

Sue Northcott - Bag Designer with a vision

"It has been fascinating to find solutions to the fastenings and hardware on the bags, without using new parts.  I have loved using bits of tack: harness, braided rein, etc., as well as scavenged bits from army tents.  I just bought a navy wool sailor jacket that looks like it will make a great bag...everything is up for grabs.  Sometimes, standing next to a guy in a line-up for coffee, I will be seriously coveting his old worn jacket.  Seriously."

I am obsessed with making bags!  Several of my compulsive tendencies are served with this new project.  First, all the materials are re-used, found through thrift stores, sales, rag shops, etc., satisfying my inner corvid, the scrounge.  Next, it's 3D construction, super challenging to an artist working in 2d (painting, photography, video projection) for over thirty years.  Then, it's materials.  you know that feeling you get in a yarn store, a bead store, a glass place, a salvage yard....I wanna make something....and put together this, with this, add that, and..SUBLIME.  Last, it's fashion, my guilty fascination out in the open.  It may not change the world but I am fascinated by clothing and the bag is such a personal part of one's gear.

Chris Clarke - glass bead maker

I was born to a family of artists, and when my dad went to England to a world craft council meeting he came back and set up a glass studio for BIG glass. I took it over in 1978 after 4 years at the ACA and a year in a crystal factory training centre in England. I blew goblets, small bowls, large bowls, did everything myself. I sold across Canada, had numerous gallery shows, one in Holt Renfrew in Toronto, as well as down the west  coast to Carmel. I finally burnt out and went into the film industry as a scenic artist. I did miss my glassmaking and so I spent 3 hours with Barry Edwards and she taught me how to run a small minor torch, so now I have a torch set up with an oxygen concentrator and a small propane tank.

At first I did only beads that look like Bull Terriers ( I have been in Bull Terriers for 20 years, illustrated the book 'Kid in a Dog Suit for the BTCA as well as a cook book and also illustrated Lonesome, Diary of a Wilderness dog )It was a way to finance my dog show habit (Australia, England and all over the USA) but now I am expanding into the world of cats and orbs so that is the way my work is progressing it seems to have taken a route of it's own!

Chris