Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined Kaia Bryce (piano, melodica, vocals) and Adrian Esau (guitar, harmonica, vocals) – Lasqueti islanders with big hearts and a big sound! They played a lively genre-bending show full of creative time-feel changes and rural island sentiments.
Continue reading Kaia Bryce and Adrian Esau play at the new pavilion in Mansons LandingThese are my favorite first impressions when looking at art.
Ah…hum…huh…mmm…..ah……what? … Hum…ah!
Art that makes me question the very definition of art deserves first impressions from my senses rather than from verbal explanations. And yet questions also rush forward. Who decides what is art: the artist, the setting, the viewer? If I trip over roots on a forest path, are they just part of a tree? If I find roots in a gallery, do they become an art material?
Continue reading A Second Look at Cortes Island Root Drawings, by John Mottishaw at the Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery
July 4, 2025 saw the launch of the Village Commons Music Series, a simultaneously live and live-broadcast show, happening on Fridays from 1 – 2:30pm on the new Pavilion stage.
Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by Denise Wolda, Owyn Pengelly, and Thomas Aerie, 3 local musicians who sat together on stage for an intergenerational in-the-round style performance, swapping songs, stories, and jokes.
Continue reading Folk U at the Village Commons Music Series 2025: Denise Wolda, Owyn Pengelly, and Thomas AerieJemma Hicken/Folk U – On June 20th, 2025 guest host Jemma Hicken was joined by the Awakeneers, a 6-person, mostly-sibling folk band, for a short live set and interview. Tune in to listen to some fiddle and folk, hear about the upcoming grand opening of the Village Commons on June 27th, and learn quite a lot about beans.
Continue reading Folk U: Awakeneers Live in StudioAn Interview with John Vaillant, Zoe Grams, and Ian Gill
What exactly is a Climate Readers Retreat? At first, I thought is was a Climate Writers’ Retreat, and even though I’m a neophyte I was intrigued that the writer Hollyhock was featuring was John Vaillant – the author of The Golden Spruce, which I had just read, and Fire Weather, which I hadn’t. I decided I would like to go to this retreat so I hightailed it to the Campbell River library and Fire Weather was on the shelf. It must be a sign! The second sign was that Hollyhock has scholarships that I could apply for. This would make attending more feasible. I pled my case and received a generous scholarship. Then I proceeded to do my homework and read Fire Weather. This non-fiction book full of disturbing information focused on the Fort McMurray fire in 2016 gallops like a wild fire at a towering pace. I had been living in north-west Alberta at the time of the fire and the realities of the oil patch economy were a determining social and economic factor in Grande Prairie on the other side of the province.
Continue reading Reading the Climate: Personal, Political, and Planetary Perspectives
