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If you love birch trees take a trip to the Heritage House Cafe between Aug 1 and 31 and take a look at Susan Hay’s Birch Series of paintings. You can preview them on line at http://www.susanhay.ca/birch-series.htm .
Drop in to our new gallery at 115 Bobcaygeon Road, Minden, On on Saturday July 14th to meet and chat with artist Susan Hay. She will be there from 9:30 to 5:30 p.m and hopes to see lots of people. Come in to discuss her work or just to browse.
Ritzpah, Harold & Hens by Terry Wright
For Canadian artist Terry Wright the “Layers of Time” series of paintings is the perfect blend of her long-standing interest in social history and oil painting. Her love of history took her on an exploratory investigation of the life of the ancestors of a close friend: Ancestors who had been some of the first settlers in the Haliburton Highlands in the late 1800s. She was captivated by the stories of hardship that these true pioneer settlers endured. The stories started with their arrival in the Haliburton Highlands during the winter. The mother was pregnant and there were small children. The oxcart they were using to transport their belongings fell through the ice. Ritzpah, one of the subjects of the series, at the age of 3 remembers that she and her slightly older siblings unloaded sleighs full of bricks in order to give her father a rest before he had to return to the rail station for more bricks to build their home. A taped interview with Ritzpah at the age of 90 formed the basis for much of Terry’s understanding of the hardships this family endured. The “Layers of Time” series is Terry’s means of capturing and portraying these hardships to others through visual storytelling in the form of Figurative Art.
Terry has been drawing figures for a very long time but, it was not until she engaged in the intensive drawing and painting program at the Haliburton School of the Arts that she felt she could really paint. Subsequent training with John Leonard and through a weekly group led by Rose Pearson has refined her skills and kept her motivated and engaged. The composition of her work is strongly influenced by Brian Ateyo. In addition to the inserted photos in this post you can see more of the “Layers of Time” series by visiting her page on www.MadeInHaliburton.ca and viewing this video produced by Haliburton Media Arts.
O Sacred Lake
Canadian artist Shelley Beach had the two paintings shown in this post accepted to a juried show put on by the East Central Ontario Art Association. O Sacred Lake (depicted to the left) won an honourable mention in the show with the following comment from the jurror: “Transitions of paint in this watercolour creates and evokes spirituality that really works with the colour palette, shape of the painting and title.” These paintings were originally part of an exhibition called “Lake of Many Winds” which was a collaboration with poet Lea Harper — the title “O Sacred Lake” comes from Lea Harper’s poetry.
Sundrunk Chalice of Lake
Shelley lives on a lake in the Haliburton Highlands, Ontario Canada and is obviously inspired by the scenery that surrounds her. She has been connected with the Highlands since 1984 when she and her husband purchased their cottage. Shelley spent every summer and most weekends at the cottage since 1985. She and her husband always dreamed of living here full-time and thus built a permanent home in 1993 which they moved to permanently in 2008.
Shelley is an active member of the Haliburton Highlands arts community and serves on the board of the Arts Council~Haliburton Highlands. She is also a silver level signature member of the Toronto Watercolour Society.
In addition to painting Shelley loves to teach others her art. She has recently taught an acrylics course at the acrylic workshop for the Port Perry Artist’s Association and a watercolour workshop for Brushstrokes in Bobcaygeon. She is a regular instructor for the Haliburton School of the Arts and has some courses coming up this summer that still have space. If you are interested please check out these links:
Canadian painter, Laurie O’Reilly, is currently working hard to create the pieces that will be shown in her next Exhibition at the Agnes Jamieson Gallery in Minden, Ontario, Canada. The work is supported by an Ontario Arts Council Grant and the proposed Exhibition dates are September and October of 2013. The working title for the show is “Extending the Narrative”.
Laurie states that she is a “visual storyteller” and “a visual anthropologist”. As such all of Laurie’s work contains narrative and she is now working to entwine previously created narrative images into new pieces that extend this narrative further in time. Her pieces have an emotional impact and this show should prove to be a powerful show as she works to “balance the sweet and the harsh” in this extension of her character’s stories.
Laurie began her association with the Haliburton Highlands in 2003 when she started taking courses at the Haliburton School of the Arts. When her husband decided to retire Laurie found the perfect spot to live, paint and be closer to the Arts Community and School of the Arts in the Haliburton Highlands. She is an active member of the Art Hive Collective, a member of the Arts Council~Haliburton Highlands. and sells her work on www.MadeInHaliburton.ca.
My connection to the Haliburton Highlands goes back to when I was two. My Dad taught biology at the Dept. of Lands and Forests “Ranger School” which eventually became the Leslie Frost Centre. We lived in one of the “officer’s cabins” down by the lake. Later, my husband and I rented a cottage on Lake Kushog which connects to Lake St. Norah, where the Leslie Frost Centre is situated. We paddled around Lake St. Norah for several summers collecting photos of the natural shoreline that the lake is famous for. Eventually, we bought a cottage on Portage Lake partly so that I could attend courses regularly at the Haliburton School of the Arts. For several summers I took 4 or 5 weeks of courses and last fall I took the 15 week Drawing and Painting Certificate Course. Several years ago I achieved my dream of becoming an exhibitor at the Ethel Curry Gallery. I had a show at the Rails End Gallery in 2009 and have shown for the past two summers at the Heritage House Cafe. Last summer I became part of the Tour de Forest and will continue to be a part of that tour. This summer I will have a show during the month of August at the Heritage House Cafe featuring Birch Trees.
We still own our little cottage on Portage Lake and use it for displaying my work during the Tour de Forest but last year we bought a year round home on Guilford Lake (which is the other side of Eagle Lake). I spend as much time there as possible. My husband and I also own a home near Clinton where my husband practices family medicine.
I achieved another goal this spring, having been asked to have a Solo Exhibition at the Blyth Festival Theatre Gallery in Blyth, Ontario in August of 2013. The theme will be the Canadian Landscape.
I continue to paint in acrylic and I now make many of my own canvas supports. I am experimenting with various textures sometimes incorporating sand into the medium and sometimes working just with the texture of the canvas itself. I am constantly challenging myself to think “outside the box” with my artistic composition and some of my newer work is less literal than my earlier work. This spring I am taking a course with Rod Prouse at the Haliburton School of the Arts called “Landscape: Working the Land”. I am very excited to be a part of Made in Haliburton!
Submitted by Susan Hay
