Tag Archives: Mary Clare Preston

Arts, Gardening

The 2024 Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour On Cortes Island

The Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour is Saturday June 22, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is an annual fundraiser for the Cortes Island Museum, as well as a showcase of some of the island’s hidden gems.  

“It’s a great opportunity to feature creative talents of people on the island, and it’s a self guided  tour of studios and gardens that takes you all the way around from Whaletown, down to Smelt Bay, and Cortes Bay. We’ve got painters, textile artists, weavers, spinners,  ceramicists .  We’ve got a number of potters and pottery studios that are participating. And then some beautiful spaces with gardens that range from low bluff to high bluff. You pick up a map, which includes a button, and you just go around the island visiting people with talents you may not have known about, or see spaces that you were curious about but never had an opportunity to actually walk into. Walk through the gates and see what people are growing there,” explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director of the Cortes Island Museum.

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Community

Ramona Boyle: Quadra ICAN’s new Coordinator

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Quadra ICAN recently hired Ramona Boyle as the Coordinator to oversee their operations. This was advertised as a part time position, which is expected to take approximately 40 hours a month. Cortes Currents asked the Heriot Bay resident about her new role.

“After I was interviewed for the job, I was told that the reason that I got it is because of my intense practicality.  I’m a problem solver and I get things done,” she explained. “When I first started working with ICAN about two years ago, some of the people came to my property here and they looked around at what I had built. I have goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, a huge garden and water collection system. All kinds of systems that didn’t exist before. The property was in quite rundown condition when we bought it. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t have certain skills, but if I needed it, I learned it. So we had to build a barn. I learned how to build a barn and put a roof on it, learned how to do a water collection system and learned how to repair a flooded roof. I’m pretty practical.”

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Arts

Pottery studio opening encouraging to local artists

CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

Potterer Mary Clare Preston held a successful collaborative open house and sale at her Foxglove Pottery studio in Mansons Landing, BC.

She welcomed the public over two Saturdays (Dec. 10th and 17th) to appreciate and purchase the work on display, including that of two guest artists — stone carver Donna Naven and fine woodworker Hannu Huuskonen.

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Development, Housing

Rezoning meeting for Treedom on Cortes Island

The rezoning meeting for an additional three homes on the Treedom Ventures property, at 1062 Seascape Road, in Mansons Landing Landing, was held Thursday. This would bring the total number of home sites on this 82 acre property to 8, with an additional cabin. Between 25 and 30 people attended the in-person component of the meeting and an unknown number attended through the internet or by phone.

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Communications

Whaletown Post Office Update: Fully Functional

This program was funded by a grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Government of Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative. 

The relocated Whaletown Post Office has finally got its approved Canada Post internet connection! Twincomm and Canada Post’s technical staff were able to get the PO online in January, so semi-automation is restored for many routine postal functions. Customers can once again use credit cards.

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