The 2026 Peer to Peer Touring Exhibition Schedule

May - United Community Arts

June - Pembina Hills Arts Council - Official Opening Reception

July - Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment

August - Tiger Hills Arts Association

September - Winkler Arts + Culture

October - Miami Arts

November - Manitou Opera House

This year eleven artists will be touring up to two pieces each for this exhibition.

Artists are: Barbara Kaminsky, Laverne Lovatt, Darlene Marsch, Susan Crawford Young, C. Lyle Tully, Kelly Rothwell, Cora Pohl, Kathy Wikdahl, Melissa Woods, Nigel Bart, and Beverly McLean.

Perspective by Lauren Teterenko

Artist Statement

As a neurodivergent artist, my perspective is influenced by my neurodivergent brain. My work intends to explore this concept, and to immerse the viewer in my own lived experience. I find many aspects of my everyday life overwhelming and chaotic. I may focus on the wrong task at hand, I feel emotions more intensely than others, I often have difficulty understanding behaviour within peer groups. These are traits that influence my personality and, by extension, my art. While I am around others, I analyze my surroundings to hide or regulate my natural instincts so I can blend into my environment. In neurodivergent communities, this is commonly referred to as “masking”. As I navigate this cacophonous, chaotic world, filled with the noises, smells, movement, and energy of innumerable moving parts, I sometimes feel overcome by adversity. But often, I am inspired. My eyes seek to analyze composition, colour palettes, and symbolism in everyday tasks, such as traffic jams, sunrises, or people-watching. My neurodivergent brain is particularly suited to make meaning out of chaos and to adapt; to create. When I censor my neurodivergence in public, I have inflicted upon myself an inherent loss of self-identity. My art reframes and exposes my sensory experiences, allowing me to be vulnerable with the viewer. By allowing the viewers to experience the masking I do, I intend to reclaim my own sense of identity. The decision to use clay is made because of the dual nature of clay: first, it is malleable, easily manipulated and edited. Then, once fired, clay becomes totally, irrevocably permanent. It is unchanging. 

Biography

Lauren Teterenko is a Woodwind Specialist and Ceramic artist who has developed a reputation as a Manitoba Performer, Educator and Creator. Over the years, Teterenko has performed as a Freelance Musician in a number of recorded and live settings as a Jazz Multi-Instrumentalist. She has installed her artwork in many spaces like the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and the Glen P. Sutherland Gallery, and has participated in public art events like Nuit Blanche. Teterenko is a regular member of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, Mark Humphries Orchestra, amongst other collectives, as well as a Director of the University of Winnipeg Downtown Jazz Band and the Saxophone Ensemble Director for the New Horizons Community Ensemble. Along with performing and directing in the city, Teterenko has worked with many school divisions as a Band EA, Clinician, and Private Instrument Instructor. Teterenko completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Performance from Brandon University, under the direction of Greg Gatien. She is currently finishing her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts, Honours Degree in Ceramics from Brandon University, under the direction of Lin Xu. 

Portage Ukrainian Nursery School Inc. 14th Annual Art Show and Sale.

May 25 to June 18, 2026

Each year the students attending Portage Ukrainian Nursery School Inc create a variety of artworks, from watercolour self portraits to the parent project and more. Portage Ukrainian Nursery School is a government licensed Preschool program located in the west wing of the Trinity United Church at 15 Tupper Street South, in Portage la Prairie.

The art in this exhibition was created by 80 children, 2 to 6 years old and their families. The Nursery School’s creative art curriculum allows the children to use quality art materials to express themselves.

The artwork displayed is part of their 14th Annual Art Show & Auction.

Watercolour/Self Portraits

It is interesting to see the changes to a young child’s “people” drawings as they grow. From scribbles and dots through to distinct faces, bodies, limbs and detailed hair and clothing.

The children are given mirrors, plain paper and permanent markers and were tasked with drawing pictures of themselves. These drawing were cut out by staff and set aside. Watercolours, paint brushes and quality paper makes for vivid artwork. This activity is a favourite with the children as they enjoy watching the colours blend as they run into each other.

Once the paintings have dried, the children’s drawings were adhered to them making for a beautiful, personal piece of art.

SMARTS IDENTIY PROJECT

Students at Oakville School worked with a local artist, Lee Beaton to create personal drawings that showed what they felt symbolized their individual identities. Kindergarten to Grade 2 students worked on collage using person photos so they are not on display. Grades 3 to 5 used Conté pastels to sketch out their symbols while students in grade 6 to 8 used vine charcoal.

Beaton worked with the students each week for five weeks and some of the memorable moments were the feedback from the students on what they enjoyed about the project. Many enjoyed learning how to use the drawing medium and blend it while others enjoyed that they had the freedom to create whatever they wanted.

This project is on display until June 11. Make sure you sign the guest book when you visit.

Art statement for More Is Best (Too Much Is Exactly Enough)

All my life, I have been told that I am “a little over the top” or simply “too much”: too loud, too emotional, too strange and too visible. As a neurodivergent person — recently diagnosed with ADHD — my mind moves quickly, notices everything, and holds many ideas at once. 

More is Best does not apologize for any of it.

These 70+ works form a visual saturation. Pattern collides with pattern, colour stacks against colour and backgrounds refuse to quiet down.

The density is intentional.

The layering of marks, repetition of motifs, and insistence on ornament mirror the way my brain operates with beauty and distraction coexisting. The work embraces abundance rather than restraint. It resists minimalism. It resists shrinking.

There is joy here, but also intensity. The sheer number of pieces becomes part of the experience. Standing in the space may feel immersive, like living inside colour, like inhabiting a mind that rarely turns down the volume.

This show, like me, can be a lot.

But “a lot” is not a flaw. It is capacity, attention, and deep feeling.  More is not the opposite of enough; sometimes, it is exactly right

BIOGRAPHY

A mixed media artist and experimental ceramicist, Kathleen Shellrude is based on Treaty 1 Territory  (Winnipeg). Her artistic career began after a lengthy hospitalization in 2015, which prompted her to use art as a means of processing issues related to a personal history marked by disability, mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. After a residency at Art Beat in 2017 she has had 9 solo shows and countless group exhibitions.

Her work draws from personal narrative, lived experience, and a deep engagement with community. Working with both traditional and unconventional materials, she explores themes of resilience, disability, memory, and the overlooked. 

Shellrude is a founding member of Higgins Studios and has taught community-based art workshops at organizations including Red Road Lodge, the Spence Neighbourhood Association, and the Indigenous Family Centre, where she uses art as a tool for empowerment, healing, and storytelling.

Her practice reflects a commitment to accessibility, care, and the everyday aesthetics of survival and joy.

Her artwork can be found online and in person, at Tara Davis Boutique and UpBeat Artworks.

The Art of Healing

Artist Statement: All local artists, emerging creators, and community members are invited to submit original works for The Art of Healing: Exploring Mental Health Through Creativity.

Artwork in any medium is welcome, as long as it reflects on mental health, healing, personal experience, or related themes.

Artist reception: Thursday, March 12 from 5:00 to 7:00pm. Come out and meet and talk to the artists behind the work.

Magic of the Prairies by Wanda Slawik

Artist Bio : I was born in Warsaw, Poland, a city with vibrant culture and complex history. I received art education there and came to Canada as a young refugee in aftermath of political strife in Europe. Arriving in Winnipeg, I was immediately facilitated by the diversity of people and the richness of the cultural tapestry of my new home.
Here I have raised my family and forged my career in the architecture field. I participate in the city growth, being part of the team who work over significant project including William Glesby Centre, in Portage la Prairie, Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. shopping mall, schools, hospitals and others public building. This offer me, better understanding of the place I live. Through my art, I embrace our complex live and cultural streams, that merge into the great river of the city.

Artist Statement: We are living in a world where speed and instant communication shape our way of relating to each other. This leads to the dangers of alienation, conflict and human suffering. My mission is to bring you the beauty inherent in the moment; to open your eyes to the brilliant and diverse of our lives. Through my art, I connect with the rich visual and spiritual mosaic that is the city of Winnipeg, and the province of Manitoba. I embrace our complex lives and many cultural streams that merge into the great river of the city and forever enriched by new arrivals

PCI Visual Arts Student Exhibit

The PCI Visual Arts program offers students opportunities to learn foundational technical skills, while exploring a multitude of processes such drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. Visual Arts courses are offered from grades 9, 10 11 and 12, with additional specialized pottery classes being offered in grades 11 and 12. The art program serves as a safe, welcoming space where students are encouraged to embrace the creative process and become more confident problem solvers along the way. Skills develop from foundational, to more complex as they move through each grade level and gain experience.

Students in the exhibition are: Wesley, Ellen, Valerie, Dailyn, Camille, Gabby, Shylee, Robynn, Trista, Caitlin, Kea, Shianne, Kaiya.

The visual arts program follows the Manitoba Curriculum Framework, while supporting and encouraging the growth of each student as a young artist. 

I do not make art for anyone; I make art for you

Artist Bio : Jude Palace is an emerging Winnipeg-based artist specializing in digital illustration. His practice involves a therapeutic approach that touches on complex personal experiences blended into a saturated and nostalgic environment to create a false sense of comfort for the viewer. Palace's work aims to latch onto the viewer's gaze at first glance using a vibrant palette all while pulling the viewer into the artwork's detail as a function to demand attention. With his work being constantly self-referential, Palace builds an elusive timeline between each piece to create a vague narrative. 

In late 2019, Palace struggled through a year of declining mental & physical health, resulting in a grand mal seizure for the first time in his life. Though epilepsy runs in his father's side of the family, this had seemingly not been an issue for the artist up until then. Without the aid of prescribed medication, he continues to experience seizures brought on by stress, lack of sleep, or malnutrition. Since then, Palace begun exploring a more contemporary and symbolic approach to his practice as a ways for his struggles to be understood universally while still welcoming interpretation.

Artist Statement: My name is Jude Palace, and I am a Canadian artist. My practice involves a therapeutic approach to each piece, using complex personal experiences and thoughts blended into a saturated and nostalgic environment. In late 2019 I was diagnosed with generalized epilepsy after experiencing my first grand mal seizure. This was a result of declining physical and mental health for the better part of a year. Though epilepsy run's in my father's side of the family, it was seemingly not an issue for me until then. 

Invisible disabilities such as epilepsy are often overlooked, as many believe what cannot be perceived cannot qualify as a disability. With my work I aim to achieve an understanding between artwork and viewer, using a heavily detailed and continuative universe to guide them from a firsthand perspective.

Of Earth and Sky by Pierrette Sherwood

BIOGRAPHY

Pierrette is a French-Canadian Métis with roots to the Nehiyawak First Nations (Plains Cree). She was raised on a dairy farmstead in LaSalle, Manitoba. She is a self-taught artist and has been drawn to art from a very young age. Her interest in reclaimed materials and metals led her to take a welding course at the Red River College in 2007, followed by a metal-smithing course at the Mechosin International School of the Arts in 2010. She is drawn to old agricultural implements and antiques, transforming rustic metal and found objects through sculpture, mosaic and assemblage.

She left the public service in 2012 to pursue her career as a professional artist and launched "Papillon Creations" in that same year to showcase her art and vintage to the public. She was later awarded first prize at a "Dragon's Den"-like contest initiated by the CDEM (Economic Development Corporation of Manitoba). Her art work has since garnered local and national media attention. In Fall 2016, she was featured as a guest artist in the television production of "Handcrafted Manitoba" and airing on the MTS On Demand network.

In 2023, Pierrette received the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Medal in recognition of her work with the Dawson Trail Arts and Heritage Project.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Having lived out of province for sixteen years, I returned to my roots with a deeper appreciation for the ties that bind the land to its people. The wild clover scent of the prairies carries memories of my youth. I am earthbound, inspired by nature’s cycles and her seasons, her endless renewal.
I aim to transform reclaimed materials from yesteryear into contemporary design. I am particularly drawn to antique farming machinery and tools. The inherent character of these pieces carries a sense of history and tradition. It beckons a respect for the past. I want to capture this essence and translate it into works that draw on nostalgia as well as one’s own relationship with the earth. Objects carry memories, stirring emotions that are often deeply rooted, and so my creative process can be at once provocative and self-reflective.
I challenge myself to work creatively with materials that I have readily accessible and will often initiate a work of art with the selection of a single, significant piece of scrap or object, like an agricultural disc or tool that I feel best resonates with my vision. I favour the raw qualities, textures, patinas and natural aging of materials over the application of color.
I have a strong affinity with birds, both from an artistic and spiritual point of view. They are nature’s song and possibly one of her most eloquent expressions. In moving forward, I would like to explore more mixed media, sculpture and artistic collaborations that resonate with themes of heritage, community and/or the environment.

From the Trappers Cabin is a collection of artifacts on loan from the Fort la Reine Museum. The Trappers Cabin at the museum was deconstructed and will be rebuilt in 2026. This is thanks to the many donors who helped to fund this project.

Items on display include several pairs of snowshoes, a pair of fur mitts, several animal traps, a lantern, birch bark moose calls and the sign from the former Trappers Cabin.

Art Through the Ages by Cynthia Keith, Debbie Drain, Annika & Amy Davey.

Bio for Cynthia, Annika and Amy

My painting journey went from acrylic folk art to a gradual shift to primarily watercolour and occasional acrylic paintings.  I had the privilege of learning watercolour painting from 2 talented and committed artists. Willie Wong, a multimedia Edmonton artist who has the gift and creativity to make his beautiful work look so easy…. Not!! He threw me into the throws of watercolour after my first session!   Next instruction was to bring paintings, questions to him so we can work on it.  A wonderful learning experience. 

Then a move to Winnipeg where I struggled in seeking watercolour development.  Eventually I found online a talented, brilliant, retired teacher Louise DeMasi.  Her life goal was to retire from teaching to start her Patreon water colour tutorial program. I was one of her earlier patrons to her now successful business. Our friendship grew as well as my painting skills.  Louise resides in Australia however distance only strengthened our friendship and painting bond. With the trust we share, I see her program workings from a Patron, and she can agree or disagree with my input! 

After a move to Portage, I started painting with the ladies at the Herman Prior Centre. A heart-warming experience. From the feedback from these ladies, I submitted paintings into 2 juried art shows. Exciting times…. 3 of my submitted paintings are hung today.  In my first Juried Program, the Underwater River painting had the privilege of attending the rural art galleries and to the Winnipeg Pavilion Art Gallery. The Autumn Flowers submission was in the second Juried Program. I felt very privileged to have this painting accepted on tour to our local rural art galleries. 

My paintings each represent one or more different techniques/styles of painting and they included the challenges of using this fascinating media, primarily watercolour. If you look closely at the Yellow Tulip, it has been woven from 2 paintings using the same outlines but different colours. The paintings demonstrate many of the techniques and drama that watercolour can achieve, demonstrating the FUN and CHALLENGE of this wonderful painting media!

This Art Exhibition is very special since it has the added challenge of having 4 painters, including our 2 granddaughters, a fellow painter and myself. 

Artist Statement and Bio for Debbie Drain

I worked at Herman Prior Centre as  cook in 2005. Marguerite Ruddle was teaching watercolor classes at the Centre every Tuesday morning.I would take every chance I could to go check out what everyone was doing. She knew I was every keen on learning  how to paint and she started helping  me. She would stay for lunch and when I was done my work, we would go to the back kitchen and she gave me private lessons. 

I started doing landscapes and soon realized  that still life was my passion. I'm striving to do hyperrealism, it is challenging but very satisfying. Watercolor  is the most challenging of the three mediums to learn and I love it.There are so many techniques to learn by using  things like salt,  saran wrap, sponges etc and sometimes letting the water do it's thing can produce  wonderful effects. 

I usually paint in the evening and I remember really getting into the  condiments picture (Pass the Ketchup) every once in awhile I would check the time it was getting later and later so by 3am my arm was starting to hurt (carpal tunnel ) so I went to bed only to get up in 4 hours to go to work, such fun!

Marguerite  is no longer with us but I'm so grateful to her for giving me the most enjoyable hobby ever. 

Bio

My name is Debbie Drain and I was born and raised in Portage la Prairie. I now live on hobby farm that was once a place alive with cattle , sheep, hogs  and a couple of donkeys and don't for get the cats.

I started painting about 20 years ago.I was thrilled to finally find an outlet for my creativity. I've loved painting from my very first brush stroke. Watercolor is the only medium I paint with because I really love it's challenges. I have a weakness for detail work ,sometimes l get lost in my work and time slips away. I've been painting for quite awhile now and my enthusiasm  for painting  is still going strong .

Slow Emergencies by Monique Martin

Artist Statement - Slow Emergencies – Did we really even try??

We thought the environment was frozen in time. It is now a slow emergency. Nature measures time in epochs, eras, eons; it is not based on a human construct of days or years. Humans trespass without notice on nature’s time scale but have altered deep time. Our trespassing renders a lasting impact, stripping mother earth, leaving her vulnerable and weak. We were complacent thinking we had the answers and believing that tomorrow is always promised. Did we even really try? The eternal seconds of our nascent attempts to address climate change may be too late. The regrets will be carried by the future generations comparing what we could have done with what actually occurred. Time is eternal and everything is gradually covered by the earth.  

'Slow Emergencies – Did We Really Even Try?' reflects on humanity’s impact on nature, which operates on a timescale far beyond our days and years. Our disregard for this natural rhythm has left the Earth vulnerable, and our attempts to address climate change may come too late. As we grapple with our delayed responses, future generations will judge us based on what we failed to do. The eternal passage of time will eventually cover our missteps, revealing the extent of our complacency and the fragility of our efforts to mend what we’ve harmed.

Biography: Monique Martin

Monique is an eco-conscious, internationally recognized, multi-disciplinary artist from Saskatoon, Canada with a 25-year exhibition history. She has exhibited her artwork in hundreds of significant solo, invited and juried exhibitions in numerous countries. Many of these were solo exhibitions in public galleries. Her works are held in public and private collections around the world. Some of the major collections include: Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Royal Alberta Museum, University of Washington Library, University of California-Los Angeles Library, Bytown Museum-Ottawa, among others.

Her work often uses significant symbols or comments on contemporary social issues. Monique creates bodies of work rather individual pieces and focuses on specific concepts. She undertakes extensive research prior to creating her work, often incorporating historically significant symbols and images to express her ideas. Her works push the boundaries of standard printmaking; enormous scale printmaking, installation based printmaking and working with three dimensions in printmaking.

She has received grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Saskatchewan Arts Board and Creative Saskatchewan.

Artist-in-Residence positions include: Disneyland Paris, Paris, France (2013), the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival (2013), the Saskatchewan Children's Festival (2012), Bytown Museum, Ottawa, Canada (2010), Spalding, United Kingdom (2008), Nice, France (2006), Vallauris, France (2006), Mount Vernon, USA (2004), Wynyard, Tasmania, Australia (2003) and Coaticook, QC, Canada (2001).

Artist Statement  

My art is an intricate fabric woven from all the people around me, the experiences I have and the things I feel. Chapters of an artistic life are unlike chapters of a book. An art life flows forward, backward, side to side with no understanding at many times where one chapter ends and another begins. An artistic life can be marked by a series of work beginning or ending, exhibitions opening or closing, an artistic life is fluid and constantly mocking 'being done' as one idea begins as another merges and builds upon the last. I never know when is the last time I will touch upon an idea or build upon a past concept. As an artist I don’t know when the fork in the road is a medium, an idea, a residency, an exhibition or an image, and often for me it is as simple as a conversation with another person. I follow my brush, carving tools, screens, scissors and glue where they take me. I trust that the trail that is created behind me will be an interesting one.

Local Sponsor: Southport Aerospace

My Painting Journey by Eileen Swerdyliak

Hello there! 

My name is Eileen Swerdyliak. I grew up on a farm close to MacGregor, and you may know me as Eileen Street. I have been farming south of Winnipeg for the past thirty plus years, but I am retired now. 

I became interested in painting a few years ago when my Mum, Marion Street, started teaching herself to paint. It was so exciting to see her progress. I am so proud of her. With my Mum’s encouragement, I picked up the brush in early 2021. A method of stress relief when my husband became extremely ill. Art became a method of refocusing and a place of quiet. It took over a year for me to paint again after he passed away in early 2022. 

Growing up on a farm, in a close community, influences what type of pictures I prefer to paint. Love western art, landscapes, and animals, but enjoy an occasional portrait, gnome, or fairy. 

Learning from online tutorial instruction, I began the journey. Acrylic paint is my main medium although I love to dabble in watercolor. I am still figuring out who I am now, and what I like to paint the most. Detailing pictures is very satisfying and enjoyable for me. 

Cat Lea Painter has been a friend of mine since we were in elementary school. We rode miles on horseback, as youngsters, with crazy imaginations and never rode home at the right time. She is a gifted artist and has encouraged me onward. 

I have been taking instruction from ‘That Art Girl’, Sharon O’Leary, in the Exchange District in Winnipeg for the last year or so. She has pushed my comfort boundaries with different media and techniques I would not otherwise have tried. 

Artist Statement:

Life changes in various degrees.   Over decades, over weeks, and sometimes in the blink of an eye.  Art, in all its forms and mediums, reflect these changes.  In subtle color changes, to bold strokes, to quiet content, to daring concepts.  All of these reflect some part of the artist’s view of the world.

This is where my journey began, when my life changed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I picked up the brush and canvas as a method of solace and escape.  For a short time everyday, learning about colors, blending, shading and highlights allowed for space to breathe and refocus.  My life fractured in so many ways after my husband passed, that was unable to paint for a year or more.

The calming space of creativity, where I felt safe to express, allowed me reach out for all those fractured pieces and slowly put them back together.  Didn’t matter the end result, it told a story. Happy spaces and calmness returned with every stroke and highlight.  I believe that is what I find in the finer details of a piece.  The focus is like a glue in every detail that puts it together, bringing all the fragments back. Bringing back peace and joy, even if for a short time.

Expressions of life are always left on the artist’s canvas.  Methods, mediums, and tools may change over time. But what the artist leaves behind in a stroke, a color, or expression, is a definition of themselves at the time.  The journey is ever changing, provoking every range of emotion. A beautiful thing to watch and see.

I would like to thank the Prairie Fusion Arts and Entertainment Community for allowing me this opportunity.  Their vision and hard work allow for the development of artist young and old, while provide a community for artists to grow.

“Paper Gardens”

My mixed media work over the last two years that you are viewing is my tribute to Florals and botanicals in a semi abstract style. Mixed media has released my inhibitions around staying within boundaries or expectations. I've ventured into places that are foreign to anything I have explored in the past. Some have commented to me “ I like your more realistic work you used to do !” and others have celebrated with me as I become someone new. Don’t we all morph into someone new in different chapters of life in many ways ? We grow, we age and we find new paths of creating our reality.

“I have lost who I was, and I am becoming who I am”

This group of 38 is a collection of semi abstract florals and do not have an individual story behind each piece. They tell a story as a whole and each piece was done intuitively. This is my growth and exploration as a Mixed Media Artist. They each have a name but they are a Garden as one. My collection of mixed media art journals were created by upcycling used thrift store books and homemade journals . They are an important part of the journey and are a constant in my art practice.

The work is created on many substrates. Watercolour paper, sheets of music, pieces of packing paper, and canvas board. I create my own collage papers on various types of paper using a gel plate, my own linocut stamps, tools and stencils. When creating a piece I use many mediums depending on what draws me at the time. My materials include Acrylic, watercolour, soft pastel, water soluble coloured pencils and graphite sticks, Charcoal sticks, collage paper, oil pastels and oil sticks, gold and copper leaf, acrylic inks, alcohol ink markers and acrylic posca pens.

Enjoy the work and I hope you are inspired.

Bio: Cathy Painter

Cathy is a local Portage la Prairie resident who has a passion for painting that started in 1998 while raising her family on a peaceful acreage with her husband Murray close to Austin Manitoba. During the years at home with her family and needing to heal from a near death trauma she found that creative outlets were helpful as well as raising a small herd of sheep during that period of time. Beginning with acrylics she self taught and by 2000 was entering juried shows and preparing exhibits. She continued to paint and build her skills as well as her career with the Credit Union that began in 2002 once the children were in school. In 2018 Cathy retired from the Credit Union. Since then her art practice has become a daily activity and some exhibiting resumed as well as teaching. While teaching classes she began exploring multiple mediums again that she had put aside during her working years and developed a love for mixed media and art journaling.

Today Cathy would call herself a Mixed Media Artist as she uses many mediums in her work to create unique original pieces and enjoys sharing her knowledge with friends and students alike. Her home is her gallery and her studio. She teaches at Prairie Fusion Arts and Entertainment and sits on the board of directors there. Her wish is that everyone find their creative outlet for the days they just need peace and contentment. No expectations, no rules, no conformity to a standard, Just create something.

My Delta Experience by Karen Braden

Artist Bio : I was born and raised in Portage la Prairie, attending North Ward and  Victoria Schools, and completed my grade 12 at Portage Collegiate Institute. Dale and I were married in 1965 and shortly moved out to the family farm in the Burnside District. We have two children, our daughter Mattie and son Robert.  We have 4 grandchildren. Mattie and Troy have two beautiful daughters, Adrie and Drew. Also Robert and Heather have two adult girls, Bailey and Sam.  We enjoyed our life on the farm and loved travelling to other places, especially enjoyed our winter holiday in the Caribbean. I was able to travel extensively  across  Canada attending Community Foundation conferences and ArtsSmarts meetings. We are now retired to a cosy condo in the Garrick Creek area.

Artist Statement: Delta Beach has a spirit about it that captures your  heart and soul. This is the case whether you  are a resident, cottage owner, renter or a frequent visitor. Delta has been a favorite place to relax, enjoy the beach, the lake, nature and all that comes with it: sunbathing, swimming, campfires, star gazing, fishing, hunting, boating and bird watching.

This exhibition is about my Delta experience from 1980 to 2010, before the great flood of 2011. My Delta experience really started as a child, I attended Camp Jubilee summer camp as a participant and later as a camp leader. As an adult, our family spent about a month each year at the family cottage #16 on the west beach. I grew to love the environment from the hot days of summer to the wild thunder storms. I especially enjoyed the time when our children were younger and now we are sharing the Delta experience with our grandchildren.  I wish to celebrate my eightieth year  by fulfilling my goal to create this exhibition.

Being part of a group of women who walked along Hackberry Avenue most mornings was one of my  highlights  each year.  We would always alternate directions; one day going east to the end of the   East Beach cottages or through the village  and next.day west to the diversion. I also enjoyed many strolls on the beach with family and friends.  Along the way I would take pictures of things that captured my eye with the intention to someday creating  works of art. I love the complexity of detail as it draws me into the subject. In hopes of  capturing the essence of  my Delta experience, my goal is to share my view of the area and hopefully bring back happy memories of Delta for others.

Edward Degas  “Art is not simply what you see … but it’s what you make others around you see”. Edward Degas

Peer 2 Peer Touring Schedule

• May • Golden Prairie Arts Council, Carman, MB

• June • Pembina Hills Arts Council, Morden, MB

• July • Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment, Portage la Prairie, MB

• August • Tiger Hills Arts Association, Holland, MB

• September • Winkler Arts & Culture, Winkler, MB

• October • United Community Arts, Pilot Mound, MB

• November • Manitou Opera House, Manitou, MB

Each year the students attending Portage Ukrainian Nursery School Inc create a variety of artworks, from watercolour self portraits to the parent project and more. Portage Ukrainian Nursery School is a government licensed Preschool program located in the west wing of the Trinity United Church at 15 Tupper Street South, in Portage la Prairie.

The art in this exhibition was created by 80 children, 2 to 6 years old and their families. The Nursery School’s creative art curriculum allows the children to use quality art materials to express themselves.

The artwork displayed is part of their 13th Annual Art Show & Auction.

Watercolour/Self Portraits

It is interesting to see the changes to a young child’s “people” drawings as they grow. From scribbles and dots through to distinct faces, bodies, limbs and detailed hair and clothing.

The children are given mirrors, plain paper and permanent markers and were tasked with drawing pictures of themselves. These drawing were cut out by staff and set aside. Watercolours, paint brushes and quality paper makes for vivid artwork. This activity is a favourite with the children as they enjoy watching the colours blend as they run into each other.

Once the paintings have dried, the children’s drawings were adhered to them making for a beautiful, personal piece of art.

Hinterland WTF? by Chris Simonite

Artist Bio : Chris Simonite is an artist from Winnipeg who spends most of his time making paintings (and occasionally animations/videos/performances) based on pop culture, conspiracy theories and environmental concerns with a Cubist inspired bent he calls Cubo-Weirdism.

He has three degrees (BA, BFA, MFA, if you must know) and has shown his art in four countries on Earth. He is also a member of the legendary (in their own minds) Frost Shield Kerfuffle Collective.

Chris Simonite has a musical/comedy/performance art alter ego, a faux Cowpunk Star called Stan Dickie, who was the subject of his MFA thesis. He’s pretty sure the University of Ottawa never forgave him for it.

Artist Statement: Imagine if a realist oil painter met Picasso, had a run-in with George Condo and their brains melded. In my work I combine traditional portraiture with geometric or distorted shapes in abstract or undefined settings, often reminiscent of Cubism as well as mid period Picasso. Some areas are fully rendered while others are left flat and monochromatic. The subject matter ranges from characters, or personalities from Popular Culture to animals in abstract or unsettling landscapes and to bizarre imagined faces as well as political figures. 

While my paintings are influenced by the aesthetics of the above mentioned artists (among others), conceptually they are informed by Artificial Realism and Psychological Cubism, both inventions of Condo. I’m specifically inspired by a quote that I read in a book of Condo’s work that summed up artificial realism as the: “capacity to treat imaginary objects as if they were real, and real objects as if they were imagined.” In my estimation it is common for people to see film and television as almost more real than their own lives, while at the same time they see politicians and even endangered species as abstractions outside their own reality.

With the work I have created for the Hinterland WTF? exhibition, I wanted to show the ongoing environmental damage that humans have caused from the perspective of the wildlife that is so often affected by our negligence and selfishness. I was inspired by the concept of wildlife cameras that often catch animals in their habitats, sometimes looking directly at the cameras. So often, if one anthropomorphizes the animals it almost seems as though they are looking as as if to say: “what are you doing to my home?”

Grief Work by Susan P. Gibson

As part of the Winnipeg Flash Photographic Festival, Susan P. Gibson’s work will be on display in the Atrium Gallery at Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment.

Bio: Born in Calgary Alberta raised in Portage la Prairie Manitoba visual was my first language. Recognized early for my drawing ability art has forever been both identity and survival; formal art education and practice enhanced my skills.

Throughout life invitations to celebrations and ceremonies from diverse friends informed my understanding of spirit and the inter connectedness of everything and everyone.

My interest is in the experience and value of those artists and audience who exist outside of the mainstream art lexicon. Lack of inclusiveness in ‘art world’ institutions leads to a loss for all. These Grief Work images honour the universality of grief and recognize the consistency of change.

In designing these images, I used a painterly approach, especially to composition colour and surface.  Caught in changing natural light and over time, the images morphed to include inorganic and organic objects.  This work reflects the influence of spiritual and artistic beliefs explored in Celtic and Indigenous art, which recognize that nothing living is still; everything is related and in an ever-changing reality. I strove to create photographs that would evoke puzzlement and wonder and make visual feelings that are universal and difficult.

Curatorial Statement: Diana Thornycroft

Susan P. Gibson and Grief Work

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” --- Susan Sontag

When a dear friend loses a loved one, we are often left feeling helpless, knowing that whatever we may be feeling, it doesn’t come close to the level of pain our friend is experiencing. We offer help, and as a custom practiced by many, we give food.

There are books and websites devoted to this practice, with titles such as Sympathy Meals, Grief and Groceries and Food Etiquette after a Death. Certain religions have specific rules; for example, in Judaism, during Shiva, the immediate relatives of the deceased must abstain from preparing food and cooking so they can focus on remembering and honouring their loved one; it becomes their community’s responsibility to provide meals for the grieving family. Giving food to those who are in mourning is an act that stems from obligation, generosity and love.

When Susan P. Gibson’s husband died, she was inundated with food. Some she consumed, some she froze, but in her exhausted and grieving state, the excess was simply left on her dining room table to wilt along with bouquets of flowers. After a while, in the summer heat, the casseroles and soups and breads and fruit began to shift colour, transform and spring new life. And magically, despite the emotional pain Susan was experiencing, despite the fact that she could barely breathe, she saw something remarkable taking place, and began documenting the decay that was happening in these gifts of nourishment.

Since July 2011, Gibson has continued to explore the subject of rotting food. Like any artist, the range of her subject matter has expanded as she has acquired knowledge about the materiality of the “products” she is working with. She has learned how to orchestrate decay at room temperature, which items take time and must remain in the fridge, what mixes with what to make what grow . . . Eventually she began adding contradictory elements to her still life subjects: pearls, marbles, glass and other found objects. Her repertoire continued to develop as she considered concepts such as the effect of time, process and environment on both unstable substances and items that will never rot.

Freud described the uncanny as the instance when something can be both familiar and alien at the same time. Because we understand the content of Gibson’s photographs, or at least, can imagine what it was before it started to “go bad”, her work embraces the very essence of the uncanny. Violent illness would follow the consumption of previously enticing, familiar things – like dainties and cake – which now, in their state of decay, have uncannily become threatening and dangerous. Although no one would deliberately eat any of this food, we cannot prevent our minds from contemplating that possibility. The visceral reaction to looking at objects that are fermented, moldy, curdled, rank and fouled is one thing, but to imagine swallowing sour smelling, toxic rot undoubtedly triggers feelings of revulsion. Compellingly, as the viewer spends more time with the work, a shift takes place. Within what we know to be rancid, we begin to perceive beauty, and eventually the experience of aesthetic pleasure takes over.

Writing about the uncanny in the 2012 Walker Art Center exhibition Lifelike, Niamh Coghlan, in her essay, Aesthetica stated, “There is a trauma of signification in many of these hyper-realist works, with the objects’ meaning being defined not by its true function but rather by its selection and isolation from reality.” She later goes on to say that many of the pieces in the show are “fixed on the Duchampian notion of taking an everyday object and placing it within a new context, or creating it in a new form, and thereby giving that object new meaning.”

Gibson’s photographs have done that very thing; in their new state of existence, edible items no longer look nor function as they should. Some of the images, like Humid Melancholy, and Transforming Energy have more in common with a colour field painting than the documentation of rotting food. The way she has framed and isolated these still life objects before her, by effectively removing all cues that would identify their original “thingness”, has kept them preciously non-representational. Through her lens, flat areas of colour and texture dominate the composition, and it appears we are looking at unrecognizable textures in a compressed space; where form, background and ground are one, and our eyes are drawn beyond the edges of the photograph. In other images, like Identity, with the employment of a shallow depth of field, the space opens up like an extraordinary landscape. Some of the photographs, with their harmonious colour palette and elegant forms are simply stunning; Black Iris, Transparent Life and Seafoam Shard are three such images.

Ultimately though, despite what we see and know about the photographs on the wall, it is their raison d’etre, the state of grief from which they were born, that provides the deepest impact and emotional response from the viewer. Grief takes centre stage. Without love, grief would not exist. Without grief, this extraordinary body of work would not exist. Without Grief Work, I believe Susan would not exist. The life-altering impact of losing one’s partner in life shunts you into a space that is at times dark, unfathomably anguished and often precarious. It is very likely her creativity and curiosity that was able, like a life line, to pull her through and help her to regain a vision of the beauty and truth that can be found within nature and slowly slowly within life.

As the curator of this show, I want to thank the artist for her unique vision and for the pleasure of reviewing and selecting the work in the exhibition. As her friend, I want to acknowledge the strength and courage it took to pick up that camera after her world had fallen apart. On behalf of everyone who has seen Grief Work, I want to express our collective gratitude to Susan P. Gibson for giving us insight into a world full of awe, wonder and play, and to congratulate her on her truly remarkable accomplishment.

Diana Thorneycroft

Curator

Northern Lights • Hugh Conacher

“Northern Lights: dynamic displays of multicoloured luminosity appearing in the day or night sky in high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.” The Canadian Encyclopedia 

When I see a body move through theatrical space, it leaves a trail in my mind’s eye; the image lingers, slowly fading away. 

How do I capture stories in the moving body in the same way that I capture them in the natural world? Motion Capture uses dance to draw parallels from the natural world around us. The result is reminiscent of moving water or the Northern Lights.

In this series, I document a journey through time and in movement. I integrate light with live performance and hold the evanescent beauty of dancer’s movements through space, conveying the body’s momentum and elegance.

Artwork sizes:

MotionCapture1 2020 30” x 240” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture2 2020 30” x 144” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture3 2020 30” x 96.5” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture4 2020 30” x 186” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture5 2023 30”x120″ Archival Digital Print

Biography: Hugh Conacher is a lighting and multi-media designer, and a photographer, whose practice is based in live performance. He has collaborated with choreographers, directors, visual artists, and dance and theatre companies throughout Canada and around the world, in venues large and small.

Canadian artists and companies include the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Citadel Theatre, Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the National Arts Centre, Mirvish Productions, QDance, Gearshifting Performance Works, Theatre Projects Manitoba, Freya Björg Olafson and Wanda Koop, to name a few.

Hugh’s love of photography and extreme climates has taken him from the Arctic to the Antarctic in order to capture the changing beauty of these unique landscapes. His photographic work resides in private collections and has been published worldwide.

Hugh is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada and L’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec.

joy by Tfam

Artist Bio : The Textile and Fibre Artists of Manitoba (TFAM) is a non-profit fibre arts group founded in September 2017. The current membership count is 72 members from urban and rural areas of Manitoba and Canada. TFAM has been involved in numerous Events, Workshops, Presentations & Receptions, Meetings, Newsletters and Exhibits including Manitoba Moments, ICE, River and Shifting Perspective. Throughout the pandemic, TFAM has continued to support its members through monthly ZOOM Meetings, online workshops, a gallery/ museum reference section on the Website, the opportunity to give back to the community through various mask initiatives, and a COVID Fibre Art Journal Challenge which has been donated to the Manitoba Museum as part of their permanent collection.

Artist Statement: ‘Jubilant, diverse and inspiring, JOY is a feeling to recognize, embrace and share.’

Weight We Carry • Kristy Janvier

This is an interdisciplinary work made during Kristy’s Rural Arts Mentorship with Lita Fontaine (2022) from ideas she has carried since 2018.

Kristy chose rocks for her performance’s artifact. Images of being weighed down by the rock, balancing the weight, carrying the rock(s) becomes the symbolic representation of motherhood. We carry our babies on our breast, our backs. Balancing it all in our day-to-day existence.

The landscape of her hometown of Flin Flon, MB is where the Canadian Shield and Boreal Forest meet. As she continues to contemplate the healing aspect as in her previous work, she is exploring how we carry so much while gracefully dancing through the transition to motherhood.

Items in the exhibit: “healing dress” (2 willow hoops (17×15.5 and 19×16.5), 100 birch bark cones, stones, ribbon, Imitation sinew, fabric, small stone;
“moss bag”, Secondary item is the weighted moss bag. The moss bag is made of paper, a fragile material which will hold the sturdy rocks placed inside.
“flower rock”: beadwork on a photograph of rocks.
“Weight we Carry” Lastly, an iPad or projector with video of my movement exploration on a loop or if space does not accommodate this, photograph series images. If I am physically able to be at a location, I would like to offer a live performance.

Biography: Kristy Janvier was born and raised in Flin Flon and is of Dene (English River First Nation) and of mixed European descent. At the age of 18 she began working overseas as a professional actress/dancer. After 15 years of working in the entertainment industry with Disney, Kristy returned to Canada relying on her presence/meditation practice to guide her work. Performances are influenced by improvisation yet structured from personal story incorporating images, installation, sound recording, and/or video.

In addition to her performance work, Kristy has been sewing beadwork since 2018. Sales from her beadwork, Secret_Life_of_Beads, goes towards funding her family’s bush cabin started in 1934 for future generations.

Past Highlights:
She had an opportunity to explore her research on water, the rivers, bloodlines and healing with the support of Young Lungs Dance Exchange in Winnipeg (winter 2016-17). Her first solo work “Forest Floor” showed with Free Flow/Saskatoon (Sept ’17), Weesageechak Begins to Dance/Toronto (Nov ’17), Nocturne/Halifax (Oct ’18), and Nextfest/Edmonton (June ’19). The video work from the E|MERGE artist residency at Earthdance, Massachusetts (Feb ’18) has screened at 5 film festivals in Canada. Her current solo work, Hide, has been supported by the Made in BC Re-Centering/Margins Creative Residency (2019) and shared in Edmonton (Feb ’20) at the Expanse Festival.

She has toured as an invited guest with Dancers of Damelahamid with Flicker (Oct-Nov ’17) and the national and international premier of Mînowin (Sept-Nov ’19). She has also worked with Raven Spirit Dance in The Gift (2019), presented solo work at IndigDIV (2019) and Confluence (2020).

PCI Visual Arts Student Exhibit

The PCI Visual Arts program offers students opportunities to learn foundational technical skills, while exploring a multitude of processes such drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. Visual Arts courses are offered from grades 9, 10 11 and 12, with additional specialized pottery classes being offered in grades 11 and 12. The art program serves as a safe, welcoming space where students are encouraged to embrace the creative process and become more confident problem solvers along the way. Skills develop from foundational, to more complex as they move through each grade level and gain experience.

Students in the exhibition are: Madison, Olivia, Kyliee, Sophia, Colette, Loewen, Charlie, Gabby, Oli, Khloe, Lily, Percy, Robynn.

The visual arts program follows the Manitoba Curriculum Framework, while supporting and encouraging the growth of each student as a young artist. 

The Poetry of Painting by Genevie Henderson

Bio:

Genevie Henderson’s contemporary art is alchemy: – different, unique, with multi-faceted dimension. She has embraced a palette of impressionism, abstract, figurative, floral and cultural art rendered in acrylic, inks, mixed medium and metallic elements.

Artist Statement:

My distinctive signature style is distinguished by passionate colour that in combination transforms my paintings into works with dazzling hues, images and motifs. I am intrigued with complex designs, exotic costume and tapestry. My paintings are recognizable through symbolism, stamping, markings, floating dots, and patterns that evolve into very original personal abstractions. Look closely, you may see the influence of Gustav Klimt who makes my artist’s heart sing.

Giving back to the community through creativity is important to me. My art is making a difference. I am proud of my award winning public and personal artwork in many community and private galleries.

What a Woman 2.0

by Tara Leach

Bio:

Tara Leach (she/her) is an artist and teacher who lives, works and creates on Treaty 2 Territory in Brandon, MB. She was born in Swan River, grew up in Dauphin, and studied at Brandon University, McMaster University and University of Manitoba. In private, Tara has put brush to canvas and eye to camera for decades as a way to make sense of her world and experiences but began publicly exhibiting her art in 2011. She teaches visual art at Ecole secondaire Neelin High school, where she has been encouraging teenagers to find their creative voices for over 20 years. She is captivated by nature, theatre, knick knacks, stories, and she looks forward to becoming a kindly crone. 

What A Woman 2.0

My work questions the assumptions underpinning the lives of women and girls and is characterized by nostalgia, personal mythology, humour, and resentment. Through acrylic portraits referencing family snapshots, mixed media collages combining vintage magazine images with expressive mark making, and compositions that remix these forms and processes, my work depicts my grandmothers, my mothers, myself and my daughter engaged in the work of forging identities and world views from a chaotic barrage of information and expectations. My work situates us as real, individual women among versions or prototypes of womanhood proposed within the broader context of cultural and metaphorical symbols, including advertising text fragments and circles.

Painting family photos and advertising art from decades significant to the women in my matriarchal lines allows me to temporarily overcome the linear nature of time. I can access an instant that, without the photograph would have been swiftly forgotten, or survived, at best, as an ever dimming impression. I can stretch time, spending hours and days inside a millisecond, carefully observing, reconsidering, recombining, reforming and re-contextualizing details according to my feelings and to what makes some sense to me. I can take (guilty) pleasure in the surfaces I render, luxuriating in patterns, textiles, fonts and textures.

Each snapshot and ad image I work with depicts a performance – often of happiness, competence, or satisfaction, (although sometimes discontent or distress), in the context of one’s own culture and time. As I work, I have very mixed feelings; I am fiercely proud of these women when they appear to be
nailing perfect performances of the version of femininity dictated by their time, and I am distressed by the knowledge that these ideals are unsustainable, operating to keep women locked in an oppressive cycle of striving, and distractions from the true task of living a meaningful life on one’s own terms.

Peer 2 Peer Touring Schedule

• May • Golden Prairie Arts Council, Carman, MB

• June • Winkler Arts & Culture, Winkler, MB

• July • Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment, Portage la Prairie, MB

• August • Tiger Hills Arts Association, Holland, MB

• September • TBA

• October • Pembina Hills Arts Council, Morden, MB

• November • Manitou Opera House, Manitou, MB

• December • United Community Arts, Pilot Mound, MB
  

Edge of Seventeen by Kevin McKenzie

 Biography

Kevin McKenzie is Cree/Métis, born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He is a member of the Cowessess First Nation of Saskatchewan,Treaty 4. He holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of Regina.

During his 30-year art practice, McKenzie has exhibited nationally and internationally, notable exhibitions include Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation II, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He also participated in Don’t Stop Me Now, National Gallery of Canada. If We Never Met, Pataka Art Gallery Museum, New Zealand. His work is represented in Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute, New York, November 2017- Jan. 2019. His work was selected as the inaugural exhibition titled ASAP at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Satellite Gallery Santa Fe, via Vital Spaces Santa Fe, NM USA.

McKenzie’s artwork is represented in the collections of; the National Gallery of Canada, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Manitoba Hydro Corporation, the President’s Art Collection University of Regina, First Nations University of Canada, Comox Valley Art Gallery, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Dunlop Art Gallery. He has a permanent public sculpture in Whistler B.C. commissioned by VANOC Cultural Olympiad 2010. In 2022 he was commissioned by the Presidents Office at Brandon University to produce a public sculpture dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation titled “Healing Together”. McKenzie lives in Brandon, Manitoba, he works at Brandon University as an instructor at Ishkaatbatens Waasa 

 Artist Statement

“My father was a survivor of the Lebret (Qu’Appelle) Indian Industrial Residential School. Unfortunately, he did not survive the accumulated effects of intergenerational trauma. We lost our dear father in 1978, he was 39 years old, I was seventeen.” - Kevin McKenzie

Edge of Seventeen collects and preserves the memories and knowledge McKenzie’s father instilled in Kevin as a child, translating his father’s teachings and passion for hockey into a contemporary Indigenous experience. The exhibition serves as a portal, linking repressed childhood memories of McKenzie’s father to his current state of Indigenous regeneration and resistance to colonial assimilation. Edge of Seventeen reflects a personal transformation, through a process of reconstructing Indigenous identity and masculinity.

Kevin McKenzie is Cree/Métis, Saskatchewan artist, based in Brandon, Manitoba. He is a member of the Cowessess First Nation of Saskatchewan, Treaty 4. He holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of Regina. McKenzie has exhibited nationally and internationally at notable galleries such as Museum of Arts and Design, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and Pataka Art Gallery Museum, New Zealand. McKenzie's artwork is represented in numerous public and corporate collections and has a permanent public sculpture in Whistler B.C. commissioned by VANOC Cultural Olympiad 2010. In 2022 he was commissioned by the President’s Office at Brandon University to produce a public sculpture dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation. Currently, McKenzie is an assistant professor and faculty member in the IWGI Department of Visual Art at Brandon University. 

Each year the students attending Portage Ukrainian Nursery School Inc create a variety of artworks, from watercolour self portraits to the parent project and more.

Watercolour Self Portraits

It is interesting to see the changes to a young child’s ‘people’ drawings as they grow. From scribbles and dots through to distinct faces, bodies, limbs and detailed hair and clothing. Our children were given mirrors, plain paper, small clipboards and permanent markers and tasked with drawing pictures of themselves. These drawings were cut out by grown-ups and set aside. Water colours, paint brushes and quality paper make for vivid artwork. This activity is a favourite with the children as they enjoy watching the colours blend as they run into each other. Once the paintings dried, the children’s drawings were adhered to them making for a beautiful, personal piece of art.

The Crayon Project

This year, one of our morning kids really loves to peel the paper off crayons. The other kids quickly jumped on board and ‘The Crayon Project’ was born. Present and past nursery families donated boxes and boxes of crayons for the project. Crayons were snapped, grated, and melted with a hair dryer to create several unique pieces of art for our art auction.

Sticks, Paint and Markers

When Mr Bond has extra wood scraps, he kindly drops them off at nursery school for us to use at the art table. The last box came with many rectangular pieces and the children used liquid water colours (as we so often do) and permanent markers (again, as we so often do) to create colourful and interesting art pieces. Some signed their work. Some took it home that day but most were worked on by multiple children and returned to the big basket on the floor. We are using them as a back drop for our art show family photos this year

Fabric Art

Watercolours are a favourite medium for the children and this year we gave them large pieces of sheer material to work on. Having a large soft surface to paint on was a new and very different experience. The children used liquid watercolours, paint brushes, pipettes and permanent markers to create their group art in this project. Brushes allowed for controlled lines. Pipettes allowed spurts of paint to be sprayed. Markers added detail. Colours were layered, making for new hues. Hands were painted and prints made on the fabric. When pools of paint seeped through the cloth to paper below, the children pulled it out and pressed it on top of the cloth, making interesting relief art. Each piece is unique as different techniques were experimented with.

The Parent Painting Project

Families in our nursery school are required to help as volunteers throughout the year. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles take time from their busy schedules to spend time reading books, building block towers, visiting the playhouse and preparing snack. We work to keep our nursery art projects openended and creative. For this project, we chose larger canvases and the children used painter’s tape to divide it, making spaces for themselves and their volunteer adults. Children and adults were given specific instructions not to influence the choices of their co-artist and had to mix primary colours to make what they needed. Most of the children quickly put brush to canvas and enjoyed stirring the vivid paints to make more choices. Adults seemed to take a little bit longer to get comfortable… We love the fearless approach children have to art and we hope adults nurture it so it is not lost as children grow older. “The creative adult is the child who survived.”

Kids Behind the Camera

At our nursery school, children are taught how to use digital cameras. They have free access to three cameras to document their days with friends. Our goals for the children during this experience are: -the children express themselves as they learn to make intentional choices when taking their pictures -they learn how to use the digital cameras, -they develop an awareness of photo composition and the vocabulary that goes with it -the children gain an awareness of themselves, and others, as they take photos -social skills are developed as the children acted as photographers in the nursery school room.

Watercolours by Cynthia Keith

Artist Statement:

Greetings,

Thank-you for taking time from your busy schedule to view my paintings.

I am Cynthia Keith who loves art and participate as a hobby painter for many years. I started painting in acrylics doing folk art. I look back and that time and smile…. I could not follow the instructor’s patterns, as wonderful as they were…my project always had to have different features to everyone else’s.

My work was beautiful, I have to admit, and I did enjoy teaching others the joy of acrylic painting…but as nervous as I was, I was drawn to water colour painting. As time happens, our family moved to Edmonton. Knowing no one, I decided that I would take water painting classes by a well known Edmontonian artist named Willie Wong. My love of painting in water colours grew from that point. Do I still have my acrylic paints and tools – certainly - and they are used when I see a painting that needs the acrylic look. I have been fortunate to take acrylic classes with Lee Beaton, a well-known Portage artist over the years the years at this gallery. I learned, had a wonderful time and can you believe it, my paintings always looked different from everyone else’s!

Water colour gives me the freedom to use colour, mixes, textures as I see fit. A couple years back, in my ongoing water colour journey I saw a You Tube tutorial by Louise de Masi, a professional artist from Australia. It is through her talent, love of water colour, gift of teaching that my skills have grown. I have two paintings on exhibit, the Mushroom, and the Single White Daisy, from her program. Yes my paintings do sway from her instruction but in a positive way. I use her techniques learned and adventure on my way. Do I toss out some of my paintings – certainly – it is part of the growing in the beautiful art of water colour. Do I keep most definitely. Do I share my skills with others, most definitely – it is a joy to pass on the love of water colour painting.  

I have participated in two Jury Exhibitions at this Gallery. My first year a painting submitted was gifted as a tour painting to other rural art galleries and to the Assiniboine Park Art Gallery. In the following year, I submitted paintings and was blessed to have one painting on tour of the rural art galleries.

Life became busy and my hobby took a rest. I then focused on original cards – most with watercolour, some just fun use of paper. Now in my semi retirement, watercolour is once again a privilege to participate in. Again thank-you for visiting this beautiful art gallery and seeing the outcome of the pleasure I have in using this beautiful art medium….water colours.

Please note, the cost of the paintings on exhibit are for the paintings only; the frames used are second hand. The frames are used to highlight features of the paintings only. I enjoy supporting our local thrift shops in looking for and buying the second hand frames. I experience joy and the thrift shops sell the frames for benefit to others….a double joy.

Thank-you.

Cynthia Keith