OCC Awards & Scholarships 2012

This year I am very fortunate to be a recipient of one of the Ontario Crafts Council's Awards./ Scholarships! Please join me next Thurs. Oct 4th for the Craft Awards Ceremony at the Gladstone Hotel. This will be followed by a preview of the Award Winners 2012 exhibition at the Ontario Crafts Council. Here is some more information on the program. Please be sure to reserve your ticket for the ceremony today!

Announcing the 2012 Awards and Scholarship Recipients!

The Awards & Scholarships is an OCC flagship program that celebrates excellence in making, allows for peer recognition, and provides opportunity for promotion. Its days of accompanying the Annual General Meeting are gone - instead, the 2012 Award & Scholarships recipients will be honoured with a special event. As such, we are very excited to introduce you to the inaugural Craft AwardsCeremony - a night dedicated to makers and objects, and to celebrating the very best of contemporary craft. As part of the evening we will be announcing the award recipients of the prestigious John Mather Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as the Volunteer Committee Outstanding Service Award.
In order to build anticipation and excitement, we will be withholding the announcement of which award each recipient has won until the Ceremony on Thursday, October 4, 2012. We invite you to join us in celebrating the award winners with friends, family, patrons, donors, collectors, and the OCC board, staff and volunteers. Tickets will be available in August.

This Year's Awards and Scholarship recipients include:

Aislinn Caron, Amanda McCavour, Annie Tung, Chris Charuk, Danya Gedney, Lizz Aston, Heather Rathbun, Janet MacPherson, Janghoon Moon, Jin Won Han, Kevin Wiggers, Magdolene Dykstra, Malcolm Zander, Margaret Lim, Mariel Waddell, Marina Babic, Mengnan Qu, Micah Adams, Shuyu Lu, Stephanie Fortin, Stephen Tippin, Suzanne Carlsen, Tomas Rojcik, Victoria Yez, Ying-Yueh Chuang.

Awards Ceremony

• Thursday, October 4, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
• Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
• 1214 Queen Street W, Toronto
• Tickets $15, or $10 for Students
• Light refreshments will be served with a cash bar
• Dress: Business/formal

Followed by a reception at the OCC Gallery for the Award Winners 2012 exhibition

• Thursday, October 4, 9:00 - 11:00 pm
• OCC Gallery
• 990 Queen Street W, Toronto
• Free
• Light refreshments served

Here is a look at a selection of works by some of the Award recipients:

Annie Tung

Danya Gedney

Margaret Lim

Shuyu Lu

Stephanie Fortin

Janet MacPherson

Ontario Crafts Council: Portfolio of Makers

The Ontario Crafts Council's Portfolio of Makers is an online profile of works by a growing number of Ontario-based craftspeople. It acts as a unique resource, providing the opportunity to commission works by leading Canadian designers and makers - and I am really excited to say I have recently had my own portfolio added to the list.

There are a lot of amazing works in furniture, ceramics, metal, jewelery, textiles and so on. To check out works by each of these incredible craftspeople scroll down and click on their profile for a more in depth look at their work. Here is a quick look at my own portfolio page! for more information on the Ontario Crafts Council, check out their site here. 

Opening Reception: Fibreworks 2012

I just shipped my work off this morning and am starting to get excited about the show!!! Please join me for the opening reception of Fibreworks 2012, at Cambridge Galleries, in Cambride Ontario! 

I am really pleased and excited to be a part of this ground breaking exhibition, and also looking forward to meeting some of the other artists and seeing their work! Here is some more information about the exhibition:

Fibreworks 2012

Sept. 29 - Nov. 11th, 2012

Cambridge Galleries, Queen's Square

Opening: Friday, October 5th 5-7pm.

The 14th edition of this popular biennial juried exhibition is a showcase of fibre artists from across Canada. The exhibition honours the community's rich textile manufacturing history and the Galleries' also considers acquisitions for its permanent collection from the works selected for the exhibition.

Jurors: Lyn Carter and Fynn Leitch

Participating Artists:

Lizz Aston, Jolie Bird, Heather Cameron, Anne Devitt, Sarah Gotowka, Elizabeth Hewson, Thea Jones, Andrew MacDonald, Nancy Anne McPhee, Petrina Ng, Nicole Panneton, Liv Pedersen, Melina Seville, Barbara Sutherland, Tammy Sutherland, Kelly Thompson, Kim Vose Jones.

Cambridge Galleries presents contemporary art, architecture and design from three locations in the City of Cambridge: Design at Riverside, Preston and Queen's Square.

Lillstreet - August/September Rooftop Flag Installation

Trade School Toronto

Not too sure how I stumbled upon this website the other day, but I really wanted to share it with you, as I think it is an intriguing idea with a lot of potential. Trade School Toronto is an alternative learning space that runs on a barter system. The idea behind it is that you pay for each class you take by bartering an item with the teacher such as food, skills, supplies or assistance.

The concept really harkens back to a program I participated in 2003 as a part of Anarchist Free University. Anarchist U was an open, volunteer-run, non-hierarchical collective that organized community events, workshops and a variety of courses on arts and sciences. Each of the courses I took met about once a week, and were lead by volunteer educators with a special interest or background in that specific field. So for example, I took a course on Pre-beat, Off-beat  and Post-beat literature, with Charlie Huisken - owner of the former This Ain't the Rosedale Library, one of my favorite bookstores in Toronto! Another successful course I took was entitled, Show and Tell - Projects in Progress, with Toronto artist, Janis Demkiw. Each week we would meet at a specific location or at a different artists studio, to present and critique works in progress to a group of peers. Little did I know at the time exactly how much each of these workshops, and the relationships I built out of each of them would contribute to my life during those formative years.

Now back to the Trade School! The Trade School model started in New York in 2010, and this Fall, a group of artists and community organizers in Toronto have banded together to organize 4 days of workshops, offered on a barter system.  Each workshop is set-up to be an hour and a half long, and will work out of the not-for-profit space, Harvest Noon.

Each of the organizers involved come from a not-for-profit background, and as such, are all interested in promoting alternative modes of currency, especially when it comes to education. This is an entirely volunteer run organization, and they are encouraging those who have an idea,  a space, or would like to teach a course, to get into touch with them via email @ Tradeschool.Toronto@gmail.com

Sounds like it could have the potential to be really awesome, if the right people sign up! Workshops run from Sept 29th -Oct 3rd, with the hopes of scheduling more regular events over the coming year. If you are interested in the program, please contact Trade School Toronto, or read more about them on their website.