You haven’t missed the West End Studio Tour yet

We spent much of Sunday visiting artists on the West End Studio Tour. (It’s on again next weekend, in case you missed it.) We started at Garrie Bea Joyce’s studio because she was in our mixed media art course last year.

Garrie was light years ahead of the rest of us. She’s a retired art teacher and has been a working artist for years. By comparison, the rest of the class was still eating finger paints. But she was always interested in what we were doing, and she was generous with her ideas and knowledge. Someday I would like to take a course from her.

Garrie combines her creativity with a thorough understanding of all that theoretical and technical stuff like composition and colour and texture, so she invariably makes art that feels right. It feels good to look at it. My eye and my brain both love exploring her work. Someday, when I get another job, I’m going to buy a piece of Garrie’s art. (I’m glad it’s not yet though, because I’d be hopelessly torn between her coloured work and her textured work; I love both.) (Click for a larger view, but go see it in person too…my pictures don’t do it justice.)

Edwina Sutherland, the doll artist, provided lots of visual treats to savor along with her chocolate chip cookies. Some of her dolls are sewn, others are felted. It was hard to pick a favourite, but I eventually settled on the Pied Piper and his Familiar, which were on display at the Wall Space Gallery. (Each of the artists on the tour has one piece in the Gallery – so if you don’t have time to do the whole tour, you can swing by the gallery and see which ones you want to visit.) I also liked this felted bowl of hers.

We had a lovely visit with Alice Hinther, the Chair Artist, in her back yard. She fed us homemade cinnamon buns while we checked out all her chairs and her jewelry and the teacups hanging in her tree. GC’s favourite was the Peace Chair. I liked the little kid Time Out Chairs and the Birthday Chair. We noticed that my mother, who is also a Chair Artist, had signed Alice’s guest book right before we did. We missed her by just a few minutes.

What else? GC loved Derek Aylen’s woodcuts. Mr. Aylen’s an elderly gentleman, who, at his father’s insistence, had pursued a law career rather than becoming an artist. When he retired, he was finally able to give his abundant talent the time and energy it deserves.

GC also liked Shlomo Feldberg’s bent cutlery art, especially the Menorah. I only got a picture of the napkin rings.

We both liked Andrew King’s piece in the Gallery. Revenge. Nice pitchfork.

We didn’t get a chance to see everything. My leg was starting to drag us both down towards the end. We came back to my place, flopped down on the couch, and munched on yummy snacks delivered by a kind and generous friend.