“Okanagan Inspired” is a weekly series of profiles offering a peek into the stories and inspirations of South Okanagan residents who hold creative roles in the community.
A Penticton jewelry artist loves taking inspiration from local nature to fuel her creations.
Born and raised on Vancouver Island, Lara Harker has never been afraid to try new adventures.
“I have lived all over the Island, the Lower Mainland and taught English in South Korea for a couple of years. I once moved 13 times in a 11-year span,” Harker explains.
Harker has now been in Penticton for five and a half years, and considers it a place she’d like to stay.
“I moved here for a job. I work at the public library as a youth services technician. I love my job and the people I work with here,” says Harker.
She started gardening and foraging immediately, which led to her art.
“I make jewelry and art with resin. It wasn’t really my goal to start a business making jewelry but my friend Kali and I wanted to experiment with resin and see what we could make. I like making little things and putting flowers and bugs in them. I use flowers I have grown or found, and dried and sorted, and bugs who have passed on naturally,” Harker explains.
Her start into resin art wasn’t the smoothest, but she persisted.
“Of course the first time went horrifically wrong, but I kept finding new ways to learn from Twitter and Instagram and saw other people doing similar things and learned from them. I began making necklaces and people started requesting other pieces like earrings, so I expanded what I was making. Kali and I began Ink & Bee as a way to sell our resin art, and it’s been a really amazing experience. Kali has since moved away, so it is just me now, but it is still really fun,” says Harker.
“You can still find some of the pieces they made in the online store!”
Although having a massive and beautifully sorted collection of flowers to choose from, finding bugs to use in her pieces is a harder challenge.
“I have friends and colleagues who will give me the bugs they have found that have passed for me to use in my art. Sometimes I will come into work and there will just be containers of dead bugs on my desk, and I’m like, wow, cool!” Harker says, laughing.
In addition, Harker does something called a ‘bug bounty’.
“If you provide your own bug, I will offer a discount or make a custom Ink & Bee piece to feature your bug,” she says. Harker has used everything from bees, dragonflies, mantis, lady bugs, cicada and has a millipede waiting to be featured.
“When I go for walks, I’m not looking up. I’m looking down at my feet looking for bugs, or fighting off ants for a cool beetle,” she says.
Although it started as a hobby, Ink & Bee is growing and thriving and Harker is enjoying the process.
“Using the resin is really fun because there is a waiting period. Once you see it and take it out of the mold, it is just so cool to see how it turns out. I learn something new from every piece I make, so I take the best parts and make it better every time. As soon as I de-mold something, I start something new so it is a constant learning process,” Harker explains.
Another favourite aspect for Harker is sourcing the flowers.
“I garden with my mom and we really enjoy the time together. I grow my own flowers and dry them out and sort them all by colour. I am also fairly certain Garden Works gets about half of my income too,” Harker says, laughing.
For people interested in learning to make resin art, Harker advises, “Just do it! It can be expensive to start, because you need PPE (personal protective equipment) like gloves, and you’ll need somewhere safe to work. I work in the garage and wear a respirator. If you can smell resin, it is toxic so you need to be safe. There are a lot of resources to learn though. There are a lot of people out there who do amazing work. I enjoy taking what I’ve seen, and making it my own,” Harker says.
Selling her pieces at markets is a fun aspect for Harker.
“Ever since I was a kid, I would go to the markets in Duncan, and I thought it would be so cool to do it myself. I didn’t think I’d ever have something to sell or be good enough, but I was in the Naramata market last year, and I would love to go back! Everyone there is so incredibly fun, but I’m blown away by how kind everyone is. I’m thrilled when someone likes something I’ve made. It’s so fun to have kids come up and they are so interested in what I’ve made and I get to teach people about the process, I really love it. I would also love the opportunity to expand and sell my pieces in local stores.”
While in her garage, making her beautiful resin art, you can find her listening to Hotel California by The Eagles.
“The Eagles are my mom’s favourite, and I guess it rubbed off on me,” Harkin says.
In addition to markets, you check out pieces from Harkin from her Instagram page, @ink.n.bee or purchase from her online store.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
