Creative Space Workshop

Thursday, May 23rd has officially entered the “record books” as Brock Arts and Culture’s inaugural “Creative Space” Workshop.  This event invited like-minded locals to attend with whatever project they were working on and to answer questions about their art form.  Along with the “show and tell” we welcomed Lori-Anne Crittenden of “A Simpler Time” as our guest speaker to talk about the amazing array of art and craft pieces that she does.

Lori-Anne’s display of the varied projects she has worked on throughout the years was so inspirational,  with the beautiful postcards she painted, the graphic mail envelopes she creates, and the carved stamps for impressions on materials she made, there is no end to her creativity.  Lori-Anne made, what she called, “word birds” that were created by amalgamating decoupage and paper mache’.  There was so much to absorb that piqued one’s interest that you wanted to learn how to make it all.  Lori-Anne is an amazingly creative individual whom I admire for her diverse interests and her patience, to do such detailed work. If you ever have an opportunity to sign up for one of Lori-Anne’s workshops, consider it because you will gain so much knowledge from this artist that will inspire you to want to go back for more.   

We also observed and spoke with Mary Tuck about her project.  Mary was working on a leathercraft project that she will use at her place of employment.  She explained the “how-to” of working with these thick stiff pieces of leather she was turning into sheaths for the handles of cast iron pans she uses in food preparation. As the handles get extremely hot, it is pretty easy to burn yourself.   I thought this was a brilliant resolution that I might have to order one for each of the 2 cast iron pans I use for cooking steak or seafood entrées.

Beth Bullock impressed us with her book of sketches that she brought to the Creative Space show and tell which contained pages and pages of the many varieties of flowers she drew to use as templates for future artwork. She could easily turn these pages into a black and white colouring book to be painted and embellished, later.  Some of these flowers were very finely detailed and when you looked at them you didn’t just see a sketch on a piece of paper, you could envision them coming to life with all the colours of the rainbow.  

I displayed and spoke about a project that I, along with other local artists, that will be presented in a Deputation to Brock Township Council this coming Monday evening at 6:00 in council chambers.  We request approval for a small art installation at Beaverton Harbour and hopefully, they will see value in both, the visual interest and educational benefits.  Our project has no financial implications on taxpayers as we have volunteered our time to make the artwork and we will install the artwork so we don’t require anything but approval.  What we have undertaken is paintings of the varied species of fish that are indigenous to Lake Simcoe.  Each piece of art will have a small plate attached identifying each species.  Our focus is Perch, Smallmouth Bass, Trout, Pike, Walleye, and Ling and we propose to install them on the posts that line the harbour wall in the parking lot.  They will not exceed the width of the post so as not to impede mobility for the visitors to the Harbour.  The art pieces will provide visual appeal and important information about the inhabitants of our precious Lake Simcoe, so here’s hoping!

Credit has to go to our fabulous Photographer, Carlos Ferguson who is sadly rarely in pictures because he is the Man behind the camera.  Thank you so much Carlos, for all that you do behind the scenes with your photo equipment and technical expertise.

Lori Grant