Author: Craig Spence

December 8, 2019 Craig Spence No comments exist

Pinned to a cork board on the wall of Linda Yurgensen’s studio is a photo of her and her father painting together during a recent trip she took back to her home province, Nova Scotia. It’s a reminder of her very first inclination to translate reality into a representative vision through art. Retired now, Allen…

November 28, 2019 Craig Spence No comments exist

Shop at the Rainforest Arts in Chemainus this Christmas, and with each purchase you can enter your name in a Dec. 24 draw for two Christmas gift baskets, brimming with a total of $1,500 worth of donated art. See feature coverage of Rainforest’s Christmas selection of unique works, by local artists.

November 6, 2019 Craig Spence 1 comment

What is it you look for in a Christmas present? Of course, you want something unique, something that will delight and surprise, and in that department, few presents top original art. So, with more than fifty artists displaying paintings, sculpture, jewelry, pottery and more at Rainforest Arts, it’s a great place to find gifts that…

August 31, 2019 Craig Spence No comments exist

There’s really no such thing as an empty chair. That’s the conclusion you come to, looking at the evocative pictures Daphne and Art Carlyle have taken over the last 15 to 20 years of chairs outside cafés, in shopping malls, nailed to forest trees, in marble porticos, in just about every conceivable setting or configuration….

May 3, 2019 Craig Spence No comments exist

Antonia Olak captures equine essence Eleven years ago, Antonia Olak was walking in the trails near her home in Qualicum, when she encountered a couple of equestrians, one riding Gypsy, the horse that would inspire a series of paintings capturing the spirit of its kind: freedom, speed and surging power. It was a eureka moment….

February 28, 2019 Craig Spence No comments exist

American philosopher and naturist Ralph Waldo Emerson eulogized weeds as plants ‘whose virtues have not been discovered. It’s in that spirit that Artist Diana Durrand portrays the common dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale), using bold paintings, delicate drawings and elegant sculptures, all intended to override our entrenched suburban bias against this much maligned species. Her tribute, 100…

January 5, 2019 Craig Spence 1 comment

by Craig Spence Who knows where the wellsprings of creativity might be found? Growing up on a farm near the hamlet of Carlea, Saskatchewan, Patt Scrivener used to cycle to spot where a culvert flowed under the Canadian National Railway tracks, forming a pond that stayed throughout the summer. It was her ‘secret place,’ where…

August 27, 2018 Craig Spence 1 comment

For artist Bryan Wilson there’s a direct line between his love of the outdoors, and his passion to create art, and it shows up on his canvases. “I fish lots, I love my boating,” he said. “Any time I go out and do the things I love, I’m always thinking about my art.” And gathering…

July 5, 2018 Craig Spence 2 comments

Raising a chuckle takes skill and hard work Sally Mann, whose work is featured at Rainforest Arts for the months of July and August, wants people to ‘have a chuckle’ viewing her art. That, as it turns out, is serious business. “My work doesn’t have to have a message,” she said. “If it makes somebody…