Tag Archives: Whaletown

Arts

Painting With Eyes Closed: The Artwork of Filipe Figueira

‘Painting With Eyes Closed,’ an exhibition by Filipe Figueira opens at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery on Friday June 21st, 6-9pm. 

“You always have to come up with the title for shows. Usually they’re sort of pretentious and arty, but there’s a reason for this one. It alludes to the process. I’m inspired by scenes on Cortes. I’ll go somewhere, sketch and I’ll get inspired, but a lot of my ideas come just when I’m at the point of falling asleep. The painting will come into my head. Sometimes really detailed thoughts, like the paints to use, the techniques, the layout and even very specific paints and paint mixes pop into my head. Often I have to get up and sketch. Sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I’ll be thinking about the painting and that becomes the basis of the paintings. They are scenes from Cortes, but they’re mediated through this process,” he explained.

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Arts

Seeing the language of Art

Art is a language received through the senses, and viewing the Member’s Show at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery is a perfect opportunity to learn how this visual language creates feelings and messages when we look at the art works.

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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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Gardening

A New Season For The Whaletown Garden Centre

Noah Davidson traces his gardening itch back to the family plot in Ontario  but prior to his arrival on Cortes Island, he worked in restaurants. He started out behind the cash register of his father’s restaurant in Toronto and went on to work in a number of fast food establishments. This continued after his move to British Columbia. Noah worked at the Floathouse Restaurant, in Gorge Harbour Marina, during his first two years on Cortes Island.  

“A couple of seasons after working with them, I decided to experiment with the possibility of starting a business on my own property. I remember asking the Gorge, ‘if this doesn’t work out, would you mind hiring me back, because I don’t know whether this is going to be a grand success or a grand failure.’  They said, ‘you know, you’ve given us two good years and we’d certainly take you back,” he explained.  

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Arts

New Initiatives from the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery

The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery is trying out some new initiatives this year. Their season is starting earlier, there are more classes and special events than ever, and some of them will be in new locations. The gallery has reversed the order of its exhibitions, expanded its social media reach and now has a website at https://www.schoolhouseartgallery.ca/

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