The next show in the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery promises to be a treat. Vijen Vijendren is a retired art teacher, whose resume includes nine years at the Royal Palace in Brunei. He was also an elementary school teacher serving First Nations communities in Northern Alberta. ‘My Life in Three Chapters’ is his artistic autobiography, covering the period from his time abroad to settling on Cortes Island.
Continue reading Vijen Vijendren: ‘My Life in three Chapters’The current exhibition by Hannes Grosse at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery finally explains an answer I received in 1984. I was an uppity puppy of a new faculty member at the Nova Scotia College of Design, and I asked the head of the Studio Division, Ron Shuebrook, “Why make art?” He turned slowly, held my gaze, and said, “to go the distance. Just go the distance.”
Hannes Grosse knows the distance, and how to get there.
A Show of Gratitude is more than a history of a life with art, it is a revelation of the depth of perseverance and the height of commitment required for the journey.
Here are three ways you might look at the distance traveled in Hannes’ art.
Continue reading Art Review of A Show of Gratitude: in praise of going the distance
I learned there were five kinds of time nestled within our usual sense of “time.” The current exhibition at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery, called Island Time by artists Ester Strijbos, Janny Thompson and Monica Nawrocki, seems like a good opportunity to find these in art.
Continue reading A review of Island Time: Finding TimeArt is not simple. It is rife with contradictions and has a mandate to baffle. This seems especially true when the artist has the ability to make the familiar unfamiliar. Naomi Carins is such an artist. Waterscapes, a solo exhibition of large representational paintings of island shorelines, continuing this coming weekend at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery, forces the viewer to reconsider what is realism, and what is abstraction.
Continue reading A Review of ‘Waterscapes’ at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery
The Thursday Afternoon Art Collective will be coming to the walls of the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery at 6 PM on Friday June 9. The talents of Lisa Gibbons, Madhurima Braaten, Dayna Davis, Caz Ratcliffe, Denise Drury, Jane Newman, Karen McDiarmid and Darshan Stevens are on display in ‘Between Heaven and Earth.’ The exhibition closes on Sunday June 18.
“I’ve been doing art classes in the studio for the last maybe 10 years, mixed media art classes for different members of the community, children and adults,” explained Lisa Gibbons.
“A core group of really dedicated people just kept coming and emerged as this vital core group that we have right now. We were meeting just before the pandemic, but it was still in the form of a class. Then we had to take this break and, for me personally, I also had to take a break for health reasons. The studio was dormant. We were all in our own creative spaces at home. Gratefully, I was able to come back to the studio late last fall, maybe November, and this core group of women really wanted to continue coming back as well. We just naturally morphed into a collaborative group because everybody’s got so much experience now. So we left behind that old model that we were doing before, it’s just really beautiful how it’s blossomed, and we’re doing things together.”
Continue reading The Thursday Afternoon Art Collective brings ‘Between Heaven and Earth’ to the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery
