Cranbrook resident Joel Harding’s debut solo exhibition explores the oppositional characteristics that define a mountain
Joel Harding’s “Alpine Forces”
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Profile
Carol Gordon (1946–2025): Artist, Activist, Mentor
A reflection on the life and career of Carol Gordon and her immense contribution to the Kootenays and to Canada
Sophie Barbarics and Acacia Schachte
Canada’s Acacia Schachte and Hungary’s Sophie Barbarics are bringing the skills they’ve honed in multiple countries to local audiences and, especially, to students eager to learn.
Faces of Pride
Key City Theatre colleagues Brenda Burley and Galen Olstead were at a conference in Calgary during Pride Week in 2022 and happened upon a display of photographs that captured members of the pride community and their stories. Burley remembers being electrified. “I immediately thought, ‘We have to do this in Cranbrook.
Exploring Underground Art in the Kootenays
Zines are meant to be hidden between shelves in the library, exchanged or shared in a variety of other ways. They’re raw, genuine, unpolished and are fairly accessible to make.
Small Town Synchronicity
Despite living in a small town, both Clague and Ida have been able to create and take advantage of opportunities that might not have been available to them in urban centres.
How Art and Community Recovery Intersect
As a visual artist, Deb works primarily in pastels, capturing landscapes as they shift and change. Her work in disaster recovery focuses on supporting small, rural and remote communities as they rebuild—a project that became immensely personal after her community of Argenta was severely threatened by fire last summer.
Brian Clarkson
Clarkson’s relationship with the camera began at age 16 when he started working for the Nelson Daily News. “I spent one afternoon a week processing film in the darkroom,” he says.
Epiphany Bakes: a Baking Book by Melissa Owen
Have you ever eaten quinoa chocolate cake? I have, it came from Epiphany Cakes and it is the best darn chocolate cake I’ve ever had. Fortunately for us, it is one of the recipes that cookbook author Melissa Owen has included in her first baking book, Epiphany Bakes. Owen has chosen 60 recipes from her Nelson bakery to feature in the book and has interspersed them with profiles of individuals in her neighbourhood and community. Argenta’s Louis Bockner photographed the profile subjects and contributed the cover image. The photographs of the baked goods are by Owen.
Shannon Fraser: The Healing Art of Colour
Fabric artist Shannon Fraser describes herself as “a little old lady who lives in the wilderness in the mountains on a lake near Kimberley,” but she is so much more than that.
By the Beat of the Drum
Amongst wildflowers or at the base of a snowy slope. In a school gym or in a city park. Such settings may not have much in common, except when Patrick Carrick encourages people there to sit in a circle, equips them with hand drums and with gentle guidance allows the participants’ own rhythms to arise.
Enshrined: The Art of Tanya Pixie Johnson
Floating into a cloud of dreams comes to mind as I search for a metaphor to describe my voyage into Tanya P. Johnson’s work. It only begins to describe her: suffice to say that Johnson is a prolific artist who shies away from nothing and bathes with pleasure in speculation and uncertainty.
Are You Listening?
The buckets of fear I had to swim through to get to where I am today would make you think I can breathe underwater. I can’t. What I can do is hold my breath for a long time and hope to come above water before it’s too late.
The Right Atmosphere
Anagama kiln during firing, Robin DuPont. Photo: Adrian Wagner by Eden DuPont The soft crackling of kindling, paired with flickering wisps of flame and smoke, barely spirited enough to generate any warmth, gently marks the start of a process that is centuries old. A...
Deborah Thompson
Bath of Light, detail of right panel. Photos: Deborah Thompson Boat Without a Boat by Susan Andrews Grace This breakthrough exhibition by Deborah Thompson, Nelson’s Cultural Ambassador for 2024, will occupy both the Reid Room and the West Gallery at Grand Forks...
Zen Wang
Golden Eagle, oil. Peace and creativity through art by Margaret Tessman Zen Wang is an artist trained in classical Chinese brush painting and a first-generation immigrant to Canada. His curiosity has led him to explore various forms of artistic expression including...