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Couple transforms Interlake community into art hub, live music 'meeting place' – CBC.ca

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A trio plays a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy as a dozen people settle in for an intimate open mic night inside Derrick McCandless and Dawn Mills’s cozy spot off highways 6 and 68 in Manitoba’s Interlake.

Strings of antique-style light bulbs cast a soft glow over the mandolin, banjo and dobro guitar that hang on a wall behind the band. An array of pottery shaped in-house by Mills dots the shelves behind the audience.

The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop is full of tchotchkes — like an Elvis Presley Boulevard street sign and vintage Orange Crush ad — that create the rustic country-living vibe the couple dreamt up before buying and transforming the vacant space over the past three years.

“I have met so many people in this community through them that I probably wouldn’t have … because of this hub,” says Mills’s cousin Dana-Jo Burdett. 

Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in their rural community in more ways than one — though a return to Mills’s hometown wasn’t always in the cards.

The couple met in Winnipeg in 2011 while McCandless was playing a party at Mills’s cousin’s place. They had plans to settle in the Okanagan in McCandless’s home province of B.C. until he suffered a health scare. After that, they decided to head back to the Prairies.

WATCH | McCandless and Mills channel creative spirit into Eriksdale community:

Couple transform Manitoba Interlake community into music, art hub

11 hours ago

Duration 4:07

Dawn Mills and Derrick McCandless host the RogerKimLee Music Festival in the Manitoba Interlake community of Eriksdale. They also turned a long-vacant space in town into a live music venue, instrument repair and sales store, and pottery and framing services shop.

It was the height of the pandemic in fall 2020 when the pair relocated to Eriksdale, about 130 km northwest of Winnipeg. They bought the old Big Al’s shop, once a local sharpening business that was sitting vacant.

“He was an icon in the community. He was a school teacher. He did a drama program here,” said Mills. “He brought a lot to the town.”

The building has become their own personal playground and live-in studio.

“It keeps evolving and we keep changing it and every room has to serve multi-function,” says Mills. “It’s a meeting place.”

While they love the quiet life of their community, they’re also a busy couple.

McCandless is a multi-instrumentalist with a former career in the Armed Forces that took him all over. Now, he’s a shop teacher in Ashern who sells and fixes instruments out of the music shop.

WATCH | McCandless plays an original song:

Derrick McCandless plays an original tune at music shop in Eriksdale, Man.

19 hours ago

Duration 3:01

Derrick McCandless plays one of his original songs on acoustic guitar at the Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop in March 2024.

Mills helped found Stoneware Gallery in 1978 — the longest running pottery collective in Canada. She offers professional framing services and sells pottery creations that she throws in-studio.

They put on open mic nights and host a summer concert series on a stage next door they built together themselves. They’re trying to start up a musicians memorial park in Eriksdale too.

A woman with grey hair wearing a brown apron creates pottery on a pottery wheel.
Dawn Mills describes a piece of her pottery made in her studio in the back of their shop in Eriksdale. Mills has been in the pottery scene for decades and helped found the first pottery collective in Canada in the late 1970s. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)

One of their bigger labours of love is in honour of McCandless’s good friends Roger Leonard Young, David Kim Russell and Tony “Leon” — or Lee — Oreniuk. All died within months of each other in 2020-2021.

“That was a heart-wrenching year,” McCandless says.

They channeled their grief into something good for the community and started the RogerKimLee Music Festival.

A three-column collage shows a man with a moustache in a black shirt on the left, a man with long grey hair playing a bass guitar in the centre and a man with short grey hair smiling while playing acoustic guitar.,
Roger Leonard Young, left, David Kim Russell, centre, and Tony ‘Leon’ — Lee — Oreniuk. The RogerKimLee Music Festival in Eriksdale was named after the men, who all died within months of each other a few years ago. (Submitted by Derrick McCandless)

Friends from Winnipeg and the Interlake helped them put on a weekend of “lovely music, lovely food, lovely companionship” as a sort of heart-felt send off, said Mills.

That weekend it poured rain. Festival-goers ended up in soggy dog piles on the floor of the music shop to dry out while Mills and McCandless cooked them sausages and eggs to warm up.

“It was just a great weekend,” says McCandless. “At the end of that, that Sunday, we just said that’s it, we got to do this.”

A group of six people sing along to a performance while seated at a table.
Dawn Mills, second from left, Dana-Jo Burdett, centre, Dolly Lindell, second from left, and others take in a performance by Derrick McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie at the The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop in March. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)

Mills says the homey community spirit on display during that inaugural year is what the couple has been trying to “encourage in people getting together” ever since.

The festival has grown to include a makers’ market, car show, kids activities, workshops, camping, beer gardens, good food and live music.

This summer, Manitoba acts The Solutions, Sweet Alibi and The JD Edwards Band are on the lineup Aug. 16-18.

A woman with long brown hair in a green sweater and green tuque smiles during an interview.
Dana-Jo Burdett, cousin of Dawn Mills, took over marketing, social media and branding for the RogerKim LeeFestival. She says Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in Eriksdale through their artistic endeavors. (Travis Golby/CBC)

Burdett has been a part of the growth, helping with branding, social media and marketing. McCandless and Mills’s habit of bringing people together has also rubbed off on Burdett.

“There’s more of my people out here than I thought, and I am very grateful for that,” says Burdett.

Their efforts to breathe new artistic life into Eriksdale caught the attention of their local MLA. 

“The response from family and friend and community has been outstanding,” Derek Johnston (Interlake-Gimli) said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature in March.

“The RogerKimLee Music Festival believes music to be a powerful force for positive social change.”

Two people lay on the grass in front of a stage while musicians play.
People take in a performance at the 2022 RogerKimLee Music Festival in Eriksdale. (Submitted by Derrick McCandless)

Dolly Lindell, who has lived in Eriksdale for about three decades, said the couple is adding something valuable that wasn’t quite there before.

“There’s a lot of people that we didn’t even know had musical talent and aspirations and this has definitely helped bring it out,” Lindell says from the audience as McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie wrap their rendition of Take it Easy.

McCandless, 61, said there was a time in his youth where he dreamed of a becoming a folk music star. Now his musical ambitions have changed. He’s focused on using that part of himself to bring people together.

“I think it’s that gift that I was given that that needs to be shared,” he says. “I don’t think I could live without sharing it.”

WATCH | Trio plays song at Eriksdale music shop:

Trio plays intimate show to small crowd at Eriksdale music shop

11 hours ago

Duration 2:40

Derrick McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie play a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy at McCandless and Dawn Mills’s music shop in Eriksdale in March 2024.

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$5.2m for a duct-taped banana: has the buyer of Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork slipped up? – The Guardian

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  1. $5.2m for a duct-taped banana: has the buyer of Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork slipped up?  The Guardian
  2. A banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s art auction  USA TODAY
  3. Is this banana duct-taped to a wall really worth $6.2 million US? Somebody thought so  CBC.ca

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Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas on mixing Haida art with Japanese manga – CBC.ca

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Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas on mixing Haida art with Japanese manga  CBC.ca

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Duct-taped banana artwork auctioned for $6.2m in New York – BBC.com

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  1. Duct-taped banana artwork auctioned for $6.2m in New York  BBC.com
  2. A duct-taped banana sells for $6.2 million at an art auction  NPR
  3. Is this banana duct-taped to a wall really worth $6.2 million US? Somebody thought so  CBC.ca

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