Flower Power - Mixed Media $1,400.00

Raised amongst the temperate rain forests, mountains and endless shorelines of Vancouver Island.  Christine Stufano Simpson has always been deeply moved by nature’s immense beauty. 

The Raven - Mixed Media - $1, 400.00

Since her adolescence she has attempted to express this wellspring of sinspiration through photography, painting, and mixed media.  A self taught painter, she prefers to work primarily with acrylics. 

Recently she has been moved by the synergies between nature and the grace of the human form.  This has precipitated an artistic process which she calls body printing.  Christin’s art attempts to simultaneously capture and inspire the human spirit.  Here art is an alchemy of awe, respect and th eoverwhelming power she perceives in nature. 

I am a jewellery designer, glass bead artist, and silversmith. The work of creating a piece of jewellery is extremely engaging and stimulating. Making jewellery provides me with the opportunity to play with colours and textures, and to express myself as I experiment with the age-old fascination of personal ornamentation. It is always my intention that the person who wears my jewellery will be positively affected. 

The history of glass beadmaking goes back 4000 years. Silversmithing is also an ancient art. The approach to these two practices has not really changed over the years. The tools used have virtually always been the same. Interestingly, the processes for creating adornments from silver and glass are similar, although the specific techniques are hugely different. Respect for fire is essential!

Flameworking to turn solid, cold Murano glass rods into a molten state in order to meld them into the desired form and fuse them with other colours has taught me about patience. Working with silver wire and sheet to cut, bend, hammer, and solder my way to constructing an article has taught me about perseverance.

The adornments that I make are painstakingly, individually, hand-done: each silver clasp, silver bead, silver link is made one at a time. I make each lampwork bead from Murano glass, one bead at a time. The handcrafted silverwork with the lampworked beads combine to become a one-of-a-kind art piece. I also work with a variety of stones and pearls.

Nothing is cast, nothing is mass produced. I do all the work on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada. I hope you find pleasure in the results.  
Maureen O’Connor

"Moments to Rest" medium Gouache $325.00 CAD

Patty Patching moved to this area from the prairies to do her Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the University of Victoria.   Afterwards she continued her study of Art by becoming a Registered Art Therapist.   She paints because it feels good!  In this series of paintings Patty took her inspiration from the flow of life so visible on the West Coast…the ebb and flood of tides, lush vegetation, a  nd thirst quenching rainfalls.

"Summer Spray" medium Gouache $200.00 CAD

Being true and present to the muse of the moment, her work celebrates the spontaneity and abundance of nature.   She paints with intuition, like a bird builds a nest, one stroke fitting into another until it feels just right!

"Spiral Dance" medium Gouache $200.00 CAD

"Tropical Girl Squirrel & Gnome" Oil on Canvas $1,800.00 CAD

Raised in Victoria, British Columbia, Carollyne Yardley completed two years in the Faculty of Fine Arts, and is a graduate of the University of Victoria, where she completed a double major in Psychology and History in Art. Most recently, she has taken art classes at the Victoria College of Art and studied with Tony Ryder at The Ryder Studio School in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Since 1997, she has been the founder, business owner and creative director of a software application & web development company which provided her with a strong foundation in the visual communications industry.

“I view art and design as a process of thinking, creating, problem-solving, and communicating,” says Carollyne.

She cites a wide, ecclectic range of influences that inspire her work—not just Dali, Mark Ryden, Todd Schorr, Pop Surrealism, Raphael, Ingres and Norman Rockwell, but also Lucille Ball, Elaine from Seinfeld, Wonder Woman, Elvis Presley, and helicopter rides.

In September 2010, Carollyne launched her new business as a visual artist, and began to remove the mask of technology to emerge as her true self, standing with her hands on her hips, yelling and laughing at the squirrels in her yard.

She lives in Victoria, BC, with her husband.

James Atkin has been creating high relief woodcarvings on Vancouver Island for close to twenty years.  His calling as a woodcarver was born out of a life long affiliation with wood, a love of art and a need to create. While recovering from a series of surgeries and with a need to channel energy and frustration, he started carving. Completely self-taught, what began as a form of therapy has gradually blossomed into a passion that is almost an obsession.

Jim is both tickled and intrigued by whimsy, which is apparent in much of his work. His love for the gardens and the natural beauty that surrounds his home on Canada’s Vancouver Island are also captured in many of his carvings.

Somewhat of a purist, Jim prides himself on creating high relief carvings from a single piece of hardwood using only a sealer to protect the wood. This provides the woodcarvings with a natural looking satin finish rather than a contemporary high gloss. Jim loves the intricacies and difficulties of high relief carving. Although the wood imposes and more often than not creates constraints, it is an enjoyable challenge. That challenge requires the ability to visualize in three dimensions and to carve the piece making use of light and shadow in a creative and interesting fashion.

How do you do that?”

“How do you do that?” is the question Jim is most often asked about his carving. His simplest answer is, “I take away the wood I don’t want.”  Creating a high relief woodcarving requires a tendency to be anal retentive, have great courage and a smattering of artistic license. Not to mention a great deal of time.  This is exactly how James Atkin would describe himself.
There are only two of Jim’s carvings that took less than three months to produce from concept to the finished piece. The largest carving took eighteen months.

Inspiration

His inspiration for a wood relief carving comes from many directions: an idea that amuses him, a photograph, a moment in the garden, or simply an intriguing image. The original idea then morphs into something quite different as it slowly presents itself under the tools. The completed design is redone many times on paper until the form and feel are just right and Jim is confident that it will conform to the wood.

Producing a multi level relief woodcarving requires considerable flexibility in design and implementation. Wood likes to move, particularly when relieved during the carving process. This tendency is minimized by laminating the wood blocks, alternating the end grains while matching the surface grains and hoping the wood will do as it’s told. It is a rather exacting process. Jim’s preference is to use hard woods such as walnut, padauk and teak. Though more difficult to carve, he finds they will produce the level of detail he wants.

The carving process

The carving process is difficult to explain without writing a book. Simply put, Jim uses an array of tools to transform a block of wood into an intricate work of art. Those tools include a wide variety of gouges, rifflers, dental tools, foredom drills, fingernails and anything that will give life to all the levels of each element.

The high relief woodcarving is finished using a series of ever finer grit sand paper on every surface, edge and nook and cranny. This takes almost as long as it does to carve it. He uses only tung oil sealer to enhance the natural beauty of the wood and to protect it.