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House Beautiful: Eclectic owners fill Central Saanich home with art – Times Colonist

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“Eccentric … well, maybe I am, but never, never boring.”

That’s how artist Carolyn Kowalyk describes herself, and it’s the same way one could describe her home, which is as colourful as the woman who lives there, surrounded by art, books and treasures she’s collected on her travels.

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You won’t find any “Live, Laugh and Love” poster art from a big-box store in the artfully curated yet cosy home Kowalyk shares with her partner, Roy Walters.

Kowalyk believes houses should reflect the individuality, culture and history of their inhabitants, as well as showcasing what they love — which the couple’s home does in spades.

“I’ve never lived in a boring house. I’ve always lived in a place with my treasures around. It makes me feel warm,” she says, adding: “I’ll never be bored.”

There’s something magical about the house, which you can sense as soon as you pull up to the driveway and hear what sounds like a river flowing, but is actually wind blowing through a nearby row of trembling aspen trees.

Then there is the house’s unusual colour combination: ochre with green and blue trim. Its original colour was white with brown trim, which Kowalyk repainted soon after moving in 20 years ago with her cat.

Walters, an American scientist she met in New Zealand, joined her two years later. She jokes that it was a good thing Walters wasn’t around initially, lest he object to her exterior colour choices.

The house, which has had additions over the years, is a Second World War-era home that was originally built on the site of what is now Mayfair Mall. It was moved in 1971 to its present location, down a country lane in central Saanich.

When Kowalyk moved to the three-quarters-of-an-acre property, it was overgrown, but the avid gardener immediately set to work to create an enviable garden that has colours blooming practically year-round.

Walters is also a keen gardener who grows much of the couple’s vegetables and tends to the many fruit trees. From the office deck, you could reach out to pluck fruit from the top of one of six apple trees overflowing in the fall with apples. The property also boasts two pear trees and two plum trees.

The couple’s 1,700-square-foot house takes full advantage of the pastoral setting. “Every room here has multiple windows looking out to gorgeous scenes, birds, changing skies,” Kowalyk says.

The main living room has floor-to-ceiling windows, as does a nearby sunroom that leads to a backyard patio. The absence of window treatments allows the homeowners to fully enjoy the home’s park-like setting.

Kowalyk’s favourite room, though, is her light-filled work studio on the lower level, with sliding glass doors that open onto an inviting side-garden patio. While most of the flooring in the house is wood, she installed tiles in the studio for easy clean-up. And when her artist easel was not able to open fully because of the room’s height restriction, Walters took out part of the floor above so the ceiling could could be lifted, even though it meant sacrificing part of his office area.

The office is where Walters’ personal history is most evident, with maps and books like the The Nordic Seas. Above his computer is a wall full of photographs, including a picture of him with buddies on a long hiking excursion and a photo from his days working as a boat captain in Alaska.

Walters also loves art and commissioned New Zealand artist Cheryl Oliver to create a pottery piece of a Viking with his ship, one of many art pieces in the couple’s living room.

“Cheryl made a flag for the ship, one that she thought fitted in with the colour scheme, but Roy insisted on our next trip south that she make a proper Viking flag, an Icelandic one,” says Kowalyk, noting Roy has Icelandic genes.

Kowalyk, who is active in the local arts community, helped to bring Oliver as a guest artist to the Fired Up ceramic-art show in Metchosin in 2016.

Ceramic art is evident throughout the couple’s home — Kowalyk has been an avid collector since the 1960s.

Along a living-room ledge is a ceramic house made by a friend, while another pottery house on the mantle is from an artist in Tasmania, Australia, and a mixed-media house sculpture on sticks with fish below takes centre stage in the dining room. The piece, called Fishhaus, is by Victoria artist Leonard Butt.

“I am an artist, so the walls are filled with my work and that of fellow artists I admire,” she says.

Kowalyk’s studio has paintings on the go as well, beadwork to be turned into jewelry and paper maché sculptures of houses and “chickens with attitudes,” which she has returned to making in recent days.

It’s no surprise that so many of her paper maché art pieces are of homes, since Kowalyk “loves houses” and calls herself a nester by nature.

Everywhere you look in the home there are art pieces and little dioramas that Kowalyk has created. In the sunroom, for instance, she has combined a beloved sailor doll once owned by her father’s great aunt with heart-shaped and circular stones.

At the entrance to their bright kitchen, with open shelves full of bold-coloured Fiesta ware, there are two art pieces on each side with memorable back stories. One is a marionette-type figure called The Birdwatcher that Kowalyk purchased in Mahone Bay, NB, 40 years ago, before the internet made finding artists easy.

She knew about its artist, Kate Bird, and managed to find her “modest little house” and bought the Birdwatcher, which was adorning the artist’s mantle at the time.

The other piece at the kitchen entrance is an Indian magic basket, a quilted art piece that was rescued from Christ Church Cathedral in New Zealand after a devastating earthquake in 2011.

Kowalyk had just visited a friend, who was the artist in residence there, 10 days prior to the earthquake. Her friend was standing at an upper-storey window when the quake struck and plummeted to the basement. Luckily, she survived, as did the artwork now adorning Kowalyk’s wall.

“Everything has a story,” says Kowalyk.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic has stopped the couple from travelling overseas, Kowalyk has found some of her more recent “must have” pieces by visiting local auctions.

“I love the hunt and having new treasures,” she says.

kpemberton@shaw.ca.

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PARIS RESTAURANT PLÉNITUDE IS REVEALED AS THE RECIPIENT OF THE ART OF HOSPITALITY AWARD 2024 … – Yahoo Canada Finance

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Announced in advance of the awards ceremony for the first time ever, this accolade seeks to help raise the profile of the art of hospitality

LONDON, April 18, 2024 /CNW/ — Paris restaurant Plénitude is revealed as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024 from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, ahead of the official ceremony taking place in Las Vegas in June.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants announces Paris restaurant Plénitude as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024The World’s 50 Best Restaurants announces Paris restaurant Plénitude as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants announces Paris restaurant Plénitude as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024

Located on the first floor of the French capital’s Cheval Blanc Paris, Chef Arnaud Donckele and Director Alexandre Larvoir have created in Plénitude an ode to the tradition of French fine dining, spending two years choosing the crockery, artisans, ceramicist and fabrics that help to create the restaurant’s intimate ambiance. With just 30 covers, every detail delivers an intimate experience for its diners, complete with the restaurant’s signature French elegance.

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Normandy-born Chef Donckele, who also runs Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez fine dining restaurant La Vague d’Or, has taken on the role of master perfumer in his creations to make sauces, known as the essence of French cuisine. In his hands, each is treated like a perfume or liquid painting, created such that the sauces are the main event, with meat and fish as their complements. Under the leadership of Larvoir, the restaurant’s impeccable service team knows Donckele’s creations intimately and conveys their essence to guests stepping through the door of Cheval Blanc Paris, which was placed at No.34 on The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2023.

William Drew, Director of Content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, says: “We are thrilled to announce Plénitude as the winner of this year’s Art of Hospitality Award. Despite its relative youth, this Paris restaurant has been making waves on the global gastronomy scene for its flawless and inventive approach, celebrating the art of service and showing the world that French hospitality remains at the top of its game.”

Chef Donckele says: “Give yourself the pleasure of giving pleasure.” Larvoir adds: “At Plénitude, service is a wonderful encounter at every table. We seek to welcome our guests as if they were at home, to discover and understand them, to captivate and move them thanks to Arnaud’s fabulous sauces, to make them laugh too, before leaving them with the sincere wish to see them again soon.”

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The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 Logo (PRNewsfoto/50 Best)The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 Logo (PRNewsfoto/50 Best)

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Canada's art installation at Venice Biennale rooted in research, history, beauty – Hamilton Spectator

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Hundreds of thousands of tiny glass beads will soon be twinkling in the sun across the entire Canadian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Canada’s newly revealed entry in one of the world’s most prestigious art fairs.

But Kapwani Kiwanga, the Hamilton-born, Paris-based creator of the work, wants you to get past the cobalt blue glass glinting in the Venetian light. She wants you to think of each bead as a character.

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Israel-Hamas war impacts Venice Art Biennale – DW (English)

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The Venice Biennale, which runs this year from April 20 to November 24, is one of the world’s most prestigious international art shows. It is also held alongside the Documenta in the German city of Kassel.

The lagoon city will once again become the center of the international art world in the coming weeks and months. Over 800,000 art lovers made a pilgrimage to the previous Biennale held two years ago, and two-thirds came from abroad, a new record.

Israeli pavilion to remain closed in protest

The Israel-Hamas war is having a direct impact on the prestigious art show. 

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A collective of pro-Palestinian activists, the “Art Not Genocide Alliance” or ANGA for short, had been calling for the exclusion of Israel from this year’s Biennale amid the conflict. 

In an open letter, the activists criticized Israel for its military action in the Gaza Strip — which the collective calls a “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The open letter condemns the “double standards” of Biennale organizers, noting that they remained silent on the situation in the Middle East while they had condemned Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine two years earlier.  According to the alliance, more than 23,750 people have signed the call so far, including US photographer Nan Goldin.

The Biennale rejected the calls for a boycott. The curators had already decided on the concept and participants of the central Biennale exhibition long before the Hamas terror attack on October 7 that prompted Israel’s retaliation in the Gaza Strip.  

But now the doors to the Israeli pavilion will stay closed anyway. The exhibition’s featured artist, Ruth Patir, an Israeli born in New York in 1984, announced in a statement on Tuesday that the show will only open “when a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached.”

Italian soldiers patrol the Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair in Venice.
Italian soldiers are now patroling the Israeli national pavilion at the Biennale contemporary art fair Image: Colleen Barry/AP Photo/picture alliance

“The decision by the artist and curators is not to cancel themselves nor the exhibition; rather, they choose to take a stance in solidarity with the families of the hostages and the large community in Israel who is calling for change,” the statement on Patir’s website adds.

Patir’s exhibition, “M/otherLand,” features a video installation of ancient museum figurines representing “broken women” who “come to life and take part in a procession, in a shared public expression of grief, sorrow, and rage. The camera’s point of view is that of a bystander or a witness to the scene, thereby claiming a subjective, embodied take on world events.”

Israel has had its own national pavilion in Venice since 1950.

Russia’s pavilion to remain empty again

Meanwhile, the Russian pavilion will once again remain empty.

The Biennale did not officially exclude Russia, but after the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the artists and curators selected for the Russian pavilion resigned from participating under the national banner.

Ukraine is participating through a group exhibition titled “Net Making.”

A private security officer walks past next to a closed Russia's pavilion at the 59th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice.
The empty Russian pavilion, a photo from 2022Image: Antonio Calanni/AP Photo/picture alliance

‘Foreigners Everywhere’

Titled “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” the main exhibition is curated by the Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, who becomes the Venice Art Biennale’s first artistic director born and based in the Global South. The artistic director aims to show art from the Global South’s less privileged and less industrialized regions.

Pedrosa’s “primary focus is thus artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled or refugees,” he said in a statement. The exhibition extends across the Giardini park, the historic shipyard halls known as Arsenale and other art locations in the lagoon city.

The slogan itself is inspired by a work by a Parisian artist collective called Claire Fontaine, who had created different versions of the neon sign in 53 different languages. They now light up the Arsenale.

An art installation made of neon lights, that reads 'Fremde überall' (foreigners everywhere)
The German version of Claire Fontaine’s neon light installations: ‘Fremde Überall’ (‘foreigners everywhere’)Image: Galerie Neu, Berlin

The international art show features 330 artists, with 88 countries presenting their own exhibitions. Most of them are showing their works in the Arsenale, without their own exhibition hall.

This year, four countries will participate for the first time at the Venice event: Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Timor Leste. Nicaragua, Panama and Senegal will also participate with their own national pavilions for the first time.

African voices at the Art Biennale

The African continent, in particular, has been strengthening its presence at the world’s oldest art show. Ghana and Madagascar participated for the first time in 2019; Uganda, Cameroon and Namibia followed in 2022.

Based on the theme “Everything Precious is Fragile,” Benin’s pavilion features the works of artists Chloe Quenum, Moufouli Bello, Ishola Akpo and Romuald Hazoume. It is organized by Nigerian curator and critic Azu Nwagbogu, who is also the founder and director of the Lagos Photo Festival and the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting contemporary African art worldwide.

Among the foundation’s success stories is Romuald Hazoume. The now 62-year-old Yoruba artist and sculptor had already gained acclaim through his participation at Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007, where he presented an impressive installation commenting on flight, expulsion and the loss of home.

Through Benin’s pavilion, curator Nwagbogu also wants to spark a new perspective on the decolonization of art, he told journalists ahead of the exhibition. Beyond the restitution of objects, he also wants to promote the “restitution of knowledge.” With the help of a “library of resistance,” he aims to give voice to women on topics such as African identity, ecology and science.

Azu Nwagbogu
Azu Nwagbogu is the curator of Benin’s pavilionImage: African Artist Foundation

Does he feel that African voices are sufficiently represented in Venice? “I would like to see many more,” Nwagbogu told DW. “More importantly, I would like to see more deep cultural infrastructure built and supported on the [European] continent and more support for those impressive events we have already built across Africa.”

Germany’s multicultural approach

Among the 28 permanent country pavilions in the Giardini Park, the German pavilion’s program opens with a presentation by Berlin theater director Ersan Mondtag and Israeli artist Yael Bartana.

Cagla Ilk portrait.
Cagla Ilk is the curator of the German pavilionImage: Nick Ash/Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden/dpa/picture alliance

Under the title “Thresholds,” they offer an exploration of the past and the future inspired by various artistic concepts. The curator this year, after Yilmaz Dziewior in 2022, is the Istanbul-born architect and co-director of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Cagla Ilk. Referring to the title of the show, she explained that on the threshold, “Nothing is certain.”

The pope expected at the event

The Vatican offers one of the attention-grabbing shows this year: It is placing its pavilion in the women’s prison in Venice. Inmates accompany visitors on an art itinerary through the prison.

Pope Francis also wants to visit the pavilion. He would be the first pontiff to date to visit the Venice Biennale.

This article was originally written in German.

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