YOUNG AT ART | at Expressions, 15 November 2007
1. The Art of Dionysos Karen Close
Dionysos is the Greek god of wine. Although today his Roman descendant, Bacchus, has somewhat usurped his reputation, classical study reveals he is the source first renowned for giving man the merriment and freedom from care that accompanies intoxication; a mental alchemy with an
important purpose. More than a god with a taste for grape juice, Dionysus travels the world with his band of revellers to spread the vine and to inspire creativity. He is a casual deity, usually wrapped in a loose robe. His symbol is the leaf of the grapevine. [More ...]
2. The Art of Cool Sara Lige
A little over four years ago, artists, art educators, special needs adults and family members held a brainstorming
session. They discussed forming a group to bring fine arts opportunities to adults with developmental challenges living in the Central Okanagan Area. The message was clear there was a need in the community and the time was right for such a project in Kelowna. [More ...]
3. Portfolio: The Legacy of Skywoman Lee Claremont
When I was a little girl I lived in Stratford, Ontario, home to the Shakespearean festival. We lived in a neighbourhood with very small back yards and I remember vividly medieval costumes hanging on clotheslines throughout the neighbourhood. I can still see the rich elaborate designs and the beautiful colours. It was magical and almost supernatural to see those wonderful works of art gently moving in the soft breeze - as if the intricate and colourful pieces of clothing had their own personality and were visiting amongst themselves. That wonderful memory still overwhelms me with emotion and excitement! [More ...]
4. Young at Art: A Review Jeanette Dunagan
The Okanagan Institute at Mosaic Books recently presented Young at Art and showcased Karen Close, Sara Lige and Lee Claremont. These artists demonstrated their unique prespective on art as a living experience. [More ...]
THE AGES OF ADVENTURE | at Re:Imagine, 1 November 2007
1. Going Down the High Road Karin Wilson
The days of "roughing it" are gone for a growing group of all year round road warriors. Karin Wilson finds the new Rvers are travelling in style. When most of us were kids, camping meant packing up the wood-panelled station wagon crammed full of sleeping bags, a few thermos containers filled with ice, and then stuffing in one big fancy canvas tent with poles for mom and dad plus a few orange sausage-like sacks which turned into teensy pup-tents for the little ones. [More ...]
2. Your Health as You Age Shelley Wood
Groucho Marx famously said that age was not an interesting subject. "Anyone can get old," he quipped. "All you have to do is live long enough." But for baby-boomers the topic is hardly banal - as the Canadian population ages, people have more and more questions about what to expect as they grow older. [More ...]
WILD AT HEART | at Re:Imagine, 25 October 2007
1. The Art of the Yard Don Gayton
What we strive for in garden ornamentation - from concrete frogs to wind-driven whirligigs - is both beautiful and important. Whimsy has few outlets in our society; but yard art is one, and thank God for it. The heavily ridiculed lawn gnome actually forms part of a significant tradition. [More ...]
RIGHTEOUS WORK | at Re:Imagine, 18 October 2007
1. Principles at Work Karin Wilson
There are those who view work not as a quest for the material, but rather a reflection of the spiritual. Their journey focuses not simply on the work itself, but how we both experience and engage our work. Bringing the spiritual into work isn't about rules and regulations so much as it is about setting our intentions and being true to ourselves. [More ...]
BUILDING DREAMS | at Re:Imagine, 11 October 2007
1. The Evolution of Okanagan Architecture Dona Sturmanis
Our architectural standards have been pushed to a higher level by market demand, the new urgent green movement, and the recent understanding of where we live. [More ...]
TOILING IN THE GLOBAL GARDEN | at Re:Imagine, 27 September 2007
1. The Art of the Garden Derek Evans
Throughout my life I have built gardens in unlikely places. I have never been terribly interested in the actual gardening itself the planting and weeding and harvesting and all but more in the challenge of transforming a piece of barren ground into something that might support beauty and life. [More ...]
ART IN PERSPECTIVE | at Re:Imagine, 20 September 2007
1. The Art of the Curator Elizabeth Wylie
The role of an art curator is somewhat akin to that of an orchestra conductor, in that they depend on others' efforts in order to practise their craft. Having arrived in the Okanagan Valley for the first time this past
June, to live and to work as the new curator at the Kelowna Art Gallery, this is definitely a time of discovery for me.
[More ...]
2. Bryan Ryley - Upsetting the Clan Patricia Ainslie
Bryan Ryley has a mastery of the various techniques of painting. As an abstract artist, he explores the formal and expressive aspects of painting and the issue of pictorial space. His is an exploration beyond the obvious simple mimicking of the scene in front of him. . [More ...]
3. Discoveries: The Journey Gary Pearson
The subject of the painting is "the journey". This could be a journey from one city to another, or life's journey. The title infers the absence of the return. [More ...]
THE VIEW FROM NARAMATA | at Re:Imagine, 6 September 2007
1. The View from Naramata Melody Hessing
When we moved here, the Okanagan Valley seemed like a mirage, an illusion, a hothouse Brigadoon of liquid open lake and threadbare, dry hills. Living in a cul-de-sac meant that we wouldn't be a drive-by to somewhere else. [More ...]
VIVA VERNACULAR | at Imagine Summer, 30 August 2007
1. Okanagan Architecture Finally Discovers Itself Ross Freake
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work," said the great 20th century architect Le Corbusier. "But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, 'This is beautiful. That is Architecture.'" [More ...]
2. Okanagan Vernacular: Function, Not Form? Sandra Kochan
Vernacular architecture is sometimes called 'architecture without an architect' but what's really at the heart of the vernacular, be it language, food or buildings, is local authenticity. Raw materials are sourced close by and assembled using artisanal skills. Local knowledge informs the whole process. The end results express a sense of place. [More ...]
THE GIFT OF STORY | at Imagine Summer, 23 August 2007
1. The Art of the Story Cathyrn Wellner
Stories shape reality. Storytellers, when at their best, accept the responsibility that concept implies and try to create through their stories an environment in which all can flourish. [More ...]
2. The Art of Healing Harry van Bommel
When you see, touch or hear someone's art, you are blessed with the gift of someone's soul. That is the art of healing - a shared passion to give voice to those who are often voiceless. [More ...]
3. Defining Metis Culture Dennis Joseph Weber
My ancestry traces back to some of the first Métis people, and is full of colourful and influential people. Hopefully by sharing my art and heritage, I'll inspire others to discover their cultural inheritance in the Métis Nation [More ...]
BIRDS AND BRANCHES | at Imagine Summer, 16 August 2007
1. Melvyn's Living Room Dona Sturmanis
Named after a frivolous white Persian cat, this quirky shop became a much needed, small-town culture salon. "What a concept!" enthused Karen Connelly to a milling crowd of close to 100 people. "Poetry and shopping!" [More ...]
2. The Art of Photo Restoration Yuri Akuney
Sometimes, a small faded photo is the only material reminder of people or events long gone but still important to us. Photo restoration, one form of photo retouching, is the art of reviving an image some would consider irreparable. [More ...]
3. 4 Poems Nancy Holmes
Working on a collection of poems about Okanagan plant and animal life, Nancy Holmes teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan and has worked as an editor, writing instructor and a mother. [More ...]
THE JOYS OF JEWELRY | at Imagine Summer, 9 August 2007
1. Romancing the Stone Dona Sturmanis
Is Okanagan jewelry design and creation craft, artisan or high art? It depends on the maker. Being a lifelong fan and part-time maker of jewelry, I became fascinated with jewelry designers and creators in the Okanagan and the question arose: Do people know or care about the difference between those who just string beads together, sell it - or, holy hematite - approach it like high artistry? [More ...]
2. The Art of Jade Deborah Wilson
Where the green cobbled pathway has taken an Okanagan sculptor What started out to be a part-time job while attending my last year at art school, has gradually taken on a life of its own that I could not have predicted. [More ...]
DISCOVERIES | at Imagine Summer, 2 August 2007
1. Learning Art Through Teaching Dawn Emerson
I believe one can give direction and guidance to help bring out the essentials of a person's inner creativity. I also believe everyone can create art. Perhaps everyone does not have the skills to paint a realistic portrait but everyone has their own interpretation of art from within. Starting in the classrooms, teachers have the ability to develop a students' confidence and acceptance to their individual being through art. [More ...]
2. Does Design Matter? Jarrod Thalheimer
Standing in the washroom at Moxie's Classic Grill was embarrassing. Here I was, encased in luxury, yet overcome by an almost crippling sense of obscenity. A beautiful tile floor; warm, rich wood walls; television embedded to the left of the urinals and all lovingly illuminated by an ambient glow that - sufficient for the task, ahem, at hand - still remained warm and inviting. [More ...]
3. The Art of Place Don Gayton
In 1951, the rancher-writer Richmond Hobson penned the book Grass beyond the Mountains, a classic account of ranching near Anahim Lake, in the Chilcotin. A friend of mine, who hails from Virginia, was so entranced by the book that he actually moved to the Chilcotin. I, myself, was captivated by another artistic representation of place, in this case a magnificent desert photograph by Ansel Adams called Moonrise over Hernandez. [More ...]
4. Open Vistas & Close Capture Laura Tucker
I am a storyteller - and photography is my medium. I have always been a lover of stories; a voracious reader, an enthusiastic writer and teacher. Whether I'm photographing a person, place or thing, my goal for every image is not just to tell a story, but to reveal its character. [More ...]
THE ART OF THE LABYRINTH | at Imagine Summer, 21 July 2007
1. Path to the Inner Labyrinth Karin Wilson
Meditation is the vogue form of personal spiritual retreat. It's quiet, solitary and usually stationary form of getting in touch with one's inner being. Ancient yogis were known to sit for hours, even days, in deep contemplation. But there were other spiritual masters, and seekers, who incorporate movement into their meditation. They walk. And many walk the prescribed path called the labyrinth. [More ...]
EVERYDAY SPIRITUALITY | at Imagine Summer, 12 July 2007
1. A Quest for the Spiritual Karin Wilson
Karin Wilson takes us on a personal journey as she explores the growing evidence that spirituality is alive and well in the Okanagan, and she finds some people who prove it. NAMESTE (Sanskrit) excl. - a Hindu greeting; All that is the highest ability, thought, and action in me, greets all that is the highest ability, thought, and action in you. And when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, together we may realize a state of being that is beyond our individual experience of reality and therefore greater than ourselves. [More ...]
REMINDERS AND RUMOURS | at Imagine Summer, 5 July 2007
Presenting: Karin Wilson, Gary Nylander, Sterling Haynes and Jerrod Thalheimer
1. Four Photographs Gary Nylander
A photography book that was a influential for me was The Day Books of Edward Weston, a diary of an artist as he struggles to make his art, written from 1923 to 1934 - today we would call it blogging. A book that opened my eyes to the possibilities of the black and white Landscape is The Portfolios of Ansel Adams - again, more picture than writing, but very moving all the same. [More ...]
2. First Generation Canadian Karin Wilson
I remember the first time I sat down with real Canadians.
It was sometime around 1967. I was in Grade 2 and had been invited to a friend's place for dinner.
They called it "supper" ... and getting everything ready in a house with four children to feed was a far bigger exercise than in my tiny family of two children. [More ...]
3. Human Privilege Jarrod Thalheimer
Have you heard the one about Paris Hilton? Of course you have, because everyone has. Anyone with even a passing interest in pop culture knows far too much about her. A pretty, 26 year-old blonde heiress, who is famous for little more than being famous and who appears to spend most days dreaming up ways to make herself look vacuous and stupid. [More ...]
4. Swing Low, Dr. D. Sterling Haynes
The bells were tolling at the white Methodist church in rural Alabama. Dr. D. had died in his sleep.
I mourned him as a friend and a colleague. New to the area, a Canadian doctor recently located - he offered me a genuine friendship. We established our rituals: lunch every Thursday and breakfasts on Sunday. [More ...]
5. Someone Said Stan Sauerwein
She moved to the end of his desk and gripped the edge as if she was afraid of floating away when she'd freed herself of the secret. "It's unbearable, Peter," she said. "I have to tell you now. Right now."
His wife usually just prattled, hardly ever prefacing what she was going to say with even a cursory explanation that might give a listener some advance notice to pay attention. That's why he'd stopped and listened to her. [More ...]
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