Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

Evelin Richter’s latest sculptural work (a figurative slab-built piece in stoneware, finished with various stains and low-fire glazes; 17 x 8 x 17 cm) went off to the charity fundraiser Art for Angels this weekend. Ev created the sculpture entitled Are you there? as “a whimsical expression of a quest for meaning in our time.”

We’ll be attending the Art for Angels “Art & Cocktail fundraising evening” together on Wednesday, 12 March at ALIVE in the district (140 Bannatyne, drinks at 18:30, auction starts at 20:00). This year’s “charity of choice” is Easter Seals Canada along with the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities (SMD). For tickets, contact wrapit@shaw.ca or call Dana at (204) 771-2249.

Iqaluit, Nunavut

The past three days have been a blur—art directing annual report photography in remote northern communities for our client, The North West Company (the oldest retailer in North America, also the largest non-governmental employer of Aboriginal people). Our sortie took us to the Cree community of God’s Lake Narrows in Manitoba, then across frozen Hudson’s Bay to the hamlet of Cape Dorset (famous for its Inuit sculptors) on the southern tip of Baffin Island, then on to Iqaluit (formerly known as Frobisher Bay, and now the capital of Nunavut, Canada’s newest territory). Folks who have never been to Canada’s high north have a hard time imagining just how harsh and sparsely populated an environment this is—though spread over an area equal to the size of Western Europe, all of Nunavut has a population of less than 30,000.

Predictably, the weather was cold (-30° Celcius, with wind-chills below -50°). The Company truck would not start in Cape Dorset—we were picked up from the airstrip by snowmobile. The people were warm and welcoming, however, as has been my experience on prior trips to these remote regions.

Photos: Our cozy cabin for the first night at God’s Lake Narrows Lodge; Cree vocabulary snapshot from the school billboard; warm Inuit smiles in frigid Cape Dorset; Iqaluit stop-sign (Inuktitut); boarding the Company plane at the fibreglass-skinned airport terminal; happy teens at the NorthMart store. (Thanks to photographer Ian McCausland for shots 1, 3, 6).

Montreal, Quebec

The online subculture magazine Netdiver has posted its Best of the Year 2007 selections… 100 dazzling projects or sites “taking us to uncharted territories where imagination, skill, talent abide….” The selection includes friends Marian Bantjes, Kenya Hara, Paprika… to name a few. Check out the links here.

Image credit: one of Marian Bantjes’ remarkable illustrations from the mini-portfolio of her work produced for Fox River Paper’s Sundance (instigated and curated by Rick Valicenti of Thirst). Oh, and by the way, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Marian!” and thanks for mailing me one of your creative Valentines once again….

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

All of my “free time” in the past few weeks and weekends has gone into the book of poetry I am currently editing/publishing, featuring some 200 works by Sam W. Reimer, a remarkable “ecstatic depressive” (his self-description) bard living in Vancouver. Our aim is to have the book on shelves by May… Here’s a taste test:

Impression: Along Molson Way

On the other side of this chain-link fence
along the tracks,
blackberries,
daisies,
& morning-glories run in packs;
plethoras of thorns & unkempt petals,
pretty poisons
& tongues of dust-green leaves ply the ravine;
wilding as well Long tall grasses
ivies
& ferns deceptively indelicate &
dense-pack blocks of blackberry brambles
bully everything else off the would-be boulevard.

Give the earth just a crack at the city
& gardens grow in gangs,
daisies
& morning-glories run in packs.

. . . . .

©2008 Sam W. Reimer (1949 –    )

The photo is of Sam on a visit in June, 2006.

Winnipeg, Canada

Mike Grandmaison (Grandmaison Photography) has just launched the new website we designed for him last year. Hosted at and powered by an intuitive content management system from Smallbox Software, Mike’s new site features thousands of his outstanding Canadian images—available for “rights-managed” stock use, publishing, fine art decor, etc. If you enjoy Canadian landscapes (Mike has traveled from corner to corner of this great land) and/or are looking for extraordinary imagery, please visit Mike’s new website here.

Eastern Manitoba

For the past few weekends we’ve been breaking in X-country ski trails out in the woods at my place (my forest trails are not much used, so this includes some ducking under and jumping over fallen trees). Yesterday’s near-melting temperatures made for a delightful back-forty foray once again…

Ev single-tracking across the beaver pond.

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

This is a gift piece of Evelin Richter’s we recently commissioned to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of Circle’s coordinator Carol MacKay and her hubby Murray. The generous bowl (250mm Ø x 85mm thrown stoneware with low-fire 04∆ burnished steel glaze, hand-crafted wooden gift box) has a subtle yet perpetual message inscribed around the circumference (you feel it before you see it)— “…Carol loves Murray loves Carol loves Murray….”

Following the inevitable pre-Christmas artisan markets (replete with angel-themed figurines, etc.), Ev is now concentrating on figurative pieces and larger conceptual installations—she still gladly takes commissions however, and can be contacted via coordinates at her website here. View previously posted samples of her work here, and read a backgrounder (4.8 MB PDF re: Ev and her new studio What? Clay Art & Curios) here.

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

My beautiful girlfriend Evelin Richter is a talented ceramist. This past year she “hung out a shingle” and officially launched her home-studio business under the name ‘What? Clay Art & Curios.’ Well traveled, a lifelong bookworm, and an avid nature lover, Ev’s works draw on diverse stimuli triggered by wonder, cultural enigma, and erotic surprise. Inspired by “the vagaries of nature and the human condition,” her characteristic ceramic style is typified by an engagingly tactile “sense of play” and an expressive “exploration of the curious.” Ev’s creations are in various private collections, she fulfills commissions, and her pieces are available through select galleries. Contact Ev via her website here. Read a backgrounder (4.8 MB PDF re: Ev and her new studio) here.

Shown above is a sampling of Ev’s recent work featuring low-fire glazes.

Washington, USA

In 1972 (while I was still living in Germany) I saw a powerful anti-war documentary that had screened at Cannes that summer—Winter Soldier. This powerful testimonial to the atrocities of the Vietnam War (shot largely at a motel in Detroit where The Vietnam Veterans Against the War had come together in a solidarity of witness) made a lasting impression on me, and was influential in (finally) shifting public opinion against the decades-long U.S. aggression in Vietnam. You can watch a trailer for the original movie Winter Soldier here.

I’ve been informed by a cousin of mine (Boyd Reimer, a tireless activist for peace and social justice who lives in Toronto) about an upcoming action that sounds to be of merit. Boyd is engaged with The War Resisters Support Campaign which has called for a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to: 1) ensure that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and, 2) ensure that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada. Read more about that Canadian campaign here.

In the U.S., plans are afoot for a Winter Soldier redux of sorts: from March 13-16, 2008 (40 years to the day following the horrific events of the My Lai massacre), Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in Washington “to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable…” Link to more information from the Iraq Veterans Against The War here.

Ottawa, Canada

The “living legend” singer-songwriter greats for whom we designed stamps this past year (Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, and Paul Anka) are the central feature (20 pages!) of the recently-released compendium Collection Canada 2007: A Yearbook of Canadian Stamps, a book that’s “sure to strike a chord with philatelic enthusiasts, Canadiana lovers—anyone who appreciates strikingly beautiful books.”