Art
Solano ‘ignites’ its imagination with art show at fairgrounds – Vallejo Times-Herald
The future is bright for Solano County artists.
McCormack Hall at the Solano County Fairgrounds was host Saturday to the best and brightest young artists as the Solano County Department of Education put together the event “Solano Art Showcase: Ignite” which displayed 400 pieces of art by students from 24 different schools and grades ranging from fourth to 12th.
Other partners helping put together the presentation were Fighting Back Partnership, Solano Youth Resiliency Summit, Solano Friday Night Live Partner, Rio Vista ATOD Alliance, VibeSolano and Nature of Sound.
Judges looked over each and every one of the pieces, honoring awards to, among others, Armijo junior Jasmine Hernandez. She was at the front of the venue when immediately she noticed her oil painting, “Night Walk” had won Best in Show.
“I was very surprised I won,” Hernandez said while looking at her award and art as her parents watched. “This took a lot of time, but I guess I just assumed somebody else would win.”
Hernandez said her art teacher had assigned a few options to take on. She says she liked the one for “Night Walk.”
“I liked how it was colorful and how it has some people in it and I like the umbrella and bench,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez then looked at her painting a little closer.
“I don’t know, next time I think I can do even better,” Hernandez said. “Being a perfectionist I see small white spaces that I could have done better with.”
Hernandez said she someday wants to either by an art teacher or maybe even a graphic designer.
Pam and Steve Conner didn’t know anyone who participated in the event, but still came from Vacaville to see the talent displayed at the fairgrounds.
“I’m impressed with not only the art, but the age of the kids that are doing it,” Pam Conner said. “There are so many styles here. Some are a little dark, but you look at them and you can tell that the artist was trying to convey a message.”
Pam said that she noticed the event on Facebook and was glad to pay this event a visit.
“We’ve noticed that art is coming back into the classrooms more and I believe that’s a very good thing because it used to be a choice — this or P.E.,” Pam Conner said. “We still need music, art, etc in this world. For kids, that’s often how they express themselves and tell us what they are all about.”
The art was divided into five divisions, with Division I being fourth, fifth and sixth grades, Division 2 being seventh and eighth grades, Division III being freshman and sophomore in high school and Division 4 being juniors and seniors in high school.
It was a special separate category not yet classified, Division 5, that had a piece of art that was the favorite of Ken Scarberry, the Solano Office of Education Director of Youth Development. The two pieces of art Scarberry liked were both by Mariani Ramos, a sixth-grader who drew “Portrait of Mom” and “Untitled.”
Scarberry was pleased to have the event back in person again.
“Our goal is to help promote young artists,” Scarberry said. “Each school has an art teacher that we coordinate with and it’s been great. We love that moving forward we’re even trying to expand. We now have outside performers and static art, which is all digital.”
Rebecca Floyd, a Project Coordinator of Youth Development for Solano County Office of Education, said that the venue “showcased some really talented students.”
“There is such a wide range of great stuff,” Floyd said. “You have mixed media, watercolor and a mask exhibit. There are over 400 pieces of art and they’re all amazing. I’m super excited to have this back.”
Art
Couple transforms Interlake community into art hub, live music 'meeting place' – CBC.ca
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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:
Art
Meet artist J-Positive and the family behind his art store – CBC.ca
- 1 day ago
- News
- Duration 4:42
Joel Jamensky’s sunny disposition explains why the artist with Down syndrome uses the name ‘J-positive’ for his online art business, started with the help of his parents two years ago. “There’s a lot more going on in [Joel’s] art than may be at first glance – just like him,” said his dad, Mark.
Art
Made Right Here: Woodworking art – CTV News Kitchener
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Made Right Here: Woodworking art CTV News Kitchener
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