SCOTLAND!

Arnt and I went to Scotland and England this fall and here is my post about Scotland.  We flew into Glasgow and stayed with some friends who we had met in New York City at a diner 7 years ago.  Our stay there was so fun and informative due to the hospitality and knowledge of Trevor and Fiona.  Thank you, thank you to both of you so much! 

This post has lots of information for you history buffs.

GLASGOW

ARCHITECTURE, MUSEUMS AND SIGHTS

 One of the first things we noticed was all the chimneys on the buildings.  

There would have been a fireplace for each of those chimneys.

 love this building with all its details

the Doulton fountain outside the people's palace even had Canada...moosehead
for him and she has an axe and maybe wheat sheaves

 The University of Glasgow 1451
yep, almost 600 years old!!!

This is the Cloisters at the  University of Glasgow which connects
the east and west quadrangles and leads to the Hunterian.
Such a beautiful space.

Apparently Fall is coming!

Summer in BC!

SURFING:

 

We started off our summer with our 8th Annual Strathcona Surf Club contest.  It takes place in Tofino, BC and most of us camp at Greenpoint Campground.  A lot of the surfers come for the whole week and there are lots of beach and fire hangs, barbecues and surfing together.  This year we had 18 people in the water surfing and boogie boarding.  I won the trophy this year on my trusty Pipo!  Our judge of 7 years, Dori Harrison had a job in Whistler so our stand in judge was Rob O'dea who did a fabo job of filling in with side kicks Dustin and Angie on bino and photography duty.

the surf gang

PIPO handmade by Arnt Arntzen out of red and yellow cedar.

 the coveted trophy

 boards waiting to be ridden

 our lovely camp in the trees at Green Point

first year we have ever had rain but good thing the campsite comes with a dryer

MAY IS THE NEW SUMMER!

May has been almost summer with some hot days, bike rides, walking in the hood and barbecues on the deck.  Our water restrictions start soon as it is going to be a long hot summer.  Saw quite a bit of art and visited some studios over the last couple of months and been making art too.

THE HOOD

this is in our community gardern

 

my friend Lesia came to visit from Toronto and my bro Glenn and I took her to see one of the Ken Lum pieces in our neighbourhood, the scaled down Vancouver Special. 

The other is the EastVan sign.

a few of the houses in our neighbourhood

 we often take our boat ODIN into False Creek for dinner

last time we were there the "420" cannibis festival was 

happening and Sunset Beach was packed

 STUDIO VISITS

Spring is trying to Spring!

Spring is coming to BC but with some rain.  But in all fairness that is what makes us green and lush!  It has been a great year so far:  

THE HOOD:  the neighbourhood I live in is going through some growing pains.  The major street that borders us has always been a bit blah with no grocery store, restaurants or galleries.  It is now going through a huge change with apartments being built supplying both market and social housing, industry and retail.  We will get more trees and wider sidewalks for pedestrians.  As always with gentrification there are ups and downs.  There will be more cars wanting parking, more people using our small parks but we now have a grocery, restaurants and galleries. 

The Astoria looking good in the morning light! photo by Arnt

apparently we needed to know this

this apartment building is getting a facelift and will still be rentals but probably cost more

 

 

ART:

We now have our four artists moved in: Lori Sokoluk: painter, mixed media www.lorisokoluk.com, Ray Ophoff: painter, Joan Tayler: jewellery and sculpture and Arwen Hunter: documentary filmmaker http://www.somethingsomethingstudios.com

Here is a link Arwen did about Lori  https://youtu.be/mB4VCCZcPMQ

I invited them to take over the two front windows to announce their arrival in the hood!

At their opening party Arnt and I finally bought these two wonderful oil paintings from Ray Ophoff.  We have been wanting them for a couple years now.

www.firstsaturday.ca is really growing with new artists in North Vancouver, New Westminster and Vancouver. In case you don't know it is an open studio event where you can visit artists working in their studios.  We received a very generous sponsorship from www.georgiastraight.com with ads and articles both online and in print. HUGE THANKS to Laura and staff!!!  Six artists in our building are part of it.
                                    These are some of the collages I am currently showing.

we had a great meeting to plan the upcoming year

Hey it is 2016!

 "HAPPY 2016" and I want to share some great news with you all in this post!

 ART

.....but first back in 2015 we had the www.culturecrawl.ca event in our neighbourhood and thousands of people came through our building, Paneficio.  In our studio, AMP Sharon and I counted 3200 visitors.  This is the time to show new work, get feed back, sell your art and expose people to your art practice.  I did very well and sold 5 pieces and lots of my collage cards that weekend and a couple more pieces after that.  I also participate in www.firstsaturday.ca with several other artists, which is an open studio event where visitors can come to your studio while you are working.  It is a relaxed atmosphere where you can take time to talk about your work and show your tools and techniques. 

my studio during the Crawl with the great weather

2 young boys who had been in my studio left this message outside  (go to see amazing art work) Love!!!

a couple weeks later it started snowing on the mountains

the highest point in our hood and is where the eagles perch

also in my hood are many, many craft beer tasting rooms....finally went on a tour organized by my brother Glenn with Rob and Arnt....look at his tiny beer (he was the driver) compared to my big cider