Really? Summer is over?

Alas... it is that time of year again, the trees are changing colours, the days are colder and shorter, and most of us are back in class or the studio.  It is going to be a full fall, and here are some events worth taking in:

Alberta Art and Culture Days - For this year's events, the ceramics department at the college has put together a recreation of the tile exhibition that went on this summer for Red Deer's Centennial at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre.  The small show is presently set up in the Learning Gallery, which is located on the East side of campus in the Centre for Visual Art.  If you did not get a chance to see the show when it was at the Kerry Wood, here is your chance to see what the second year students put together as their Centennial Project.  Also, downtown at the City Centre Stage, Larry Reese has a display of his paintings in the Gallery.

(Look at the cool shadows!)

If you are free tonight at seven (Sept. 30th), there will be an artist talk given by Ronald Kostyniuk as part of the visiting artist lecture series at the College.  He is a sculptor and a faculty member at the University of Calgary.  This talk is free and open to the public, and will be held in the Margret Parsons Theatre at RDC.

This upcoming weekend is the annual 1000 Miles Apart Ceramics Conference!  This year the event is being hosted by ACAD and thus will take place in Calgary.  If you are interested it is open to the public and runs Thursday through Saturday.

And lastly Daniel Anhorn has a show going on at the Harris-Warke Gallery downtown.  Dan is one of our studio technicians at the College, and this is a great chance to see the kinds of work he creates.  His show, Brave New Worlds, Bold New Plans, will have its opening reception on Friday, October 4, from 6-8.

ART in the GARDEN, Summertime!

The Summer Edition of the ART in the Garden Show & Sale is upon us.  The exhibition will run on Saturday, July 27, from 2:00 - 7:00 PM.  It will be held at 58 College Park Drive, in Red Deer (note: this is near the intersection of Timoty Drive and 30th Avenue).

There is free admission to the event, and you are welcome to come and enjoy fine art and craft in a lovely garden setting.  If you have any questions about the event, they can be directed to Marlene Kallstrom-Barritt (403-346-6235).

Our esteemed graduates....

Here's some quick tidbits on our recent grads from the two-year visual art department at Red Deer College:

Emily Thompson made the front page of the paper on Monday with a project working to combat negative vandalism in downtown Red Deer.  She is working to paint murals on buildings in hopes to discourage vandals from tagging walls.

Mia Riley is being featured in the Alberta Craft Councils' Coming up Next show.  The show runs from June 20-July 27.  Leah Spagrud and Janet Peters (past students from RDC) are in the show, and a previous technician/visiting artist/student from the College, Julia Rayne Shumacher is also displaying some of her work.  You can check out the exhibition in an online form here.

We also have Summer Series going on at the College for the month of July, and a bit of August.  I know of quite a few students lucky enough to attend.  I am incredibly jealous of those taking part in Julia Galloway's class.  If you are interested in taking part, there is more information available here.

If you hear of anyone else that should be featured here, please pass along the information.  I would be happy to do a quick write-up and post it on the site.

Tiles!

Hopefully this will make it out to most of the students that were in the second-year ceramics class who produced tiles.  Please feel free to pass this post along to anyone else you can think of.  The Centennial Show for Red Deer, Points of View, has come down.  Above you can see a lovely panoramic picture that I tried to take of all the tiles.  Well, most of them.  There were a few sets that we had on the walls as complete sets by themselves.  The tiles are now all at the College, waiting to be collected.  There was some interest from the public in purchasing some of the sets, but I have yet to hear back with any definitive requests.

If you would like to collect the tiles before September when the College is open for regular hours, please let me know via email (carlene.larue@gmail.com), otherwise they will hang out there until you can pick them up in the fall.  I have extra postcards for the exhibition, as well, if you are interested in collecting one of those for your C.V. or personal scrapbook... if you have one of those... because it would be totally cool if you did.

Ann-Charlotte Ohlsson update

In the most recent issue of Ceramics: TECHNICAL (#36), Paul Leathers details Ann-Charlotte Ohlsson's recent residency at Red Deer College.  We were very fortunate to have her work at the college last year as she was generous in sharing her wood-firing knowledge and time with students.

The article documents some of her pieces made using the quarter-mould technique, as well as the firings that took place.  Paul Leathers has his photography of her works accompany the article that he wrote.  This is definitely worth a pick-up if possible.  I know that the Red Deer Chapters store does carry this magazine on occasion.  You can also purchase it online as a digital copy at a discounted rate here.

Points of View: River of Light Show

Hey, remember that tile project?  Or for those of you in the design fundamentals class, the barrel project?  It's up and on display at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre in the Marjorie Wood Gallery!  Neato!  We put together an exhibition consisting of the tiles, the barrels, photos of the maquettes of barrel sculptures, as well as a powerpoint given to us by the Creatmosphere Team documenting the progression of the River of Light project.

It's on now until July 6th.  There will be a closing ceremony on July 5th from 6:00-8:00PM.  There will be some attendees from the Centennial Committee, and there will be refreshments served.  It will be a really good event.  It is also a great chance to see your work in a professional show.  This really is an opening for the Ceramics and Design classes, so it would be great to see all of the artists out for the evening.

We will be packing up the tiles and pieces on the 7th, and bringing them back to the college.  If you need to collect them immediately, email me at carlene(dot)larue(at)gmail(dot)com.  I can try to help arrange a pick-up.  Otherwise I think that we can store them at the college until classes start up in September.

Hope to see you all there!

The Works Festival in Edmonton

I'm terrible at updating this thing, my sincere apologies.  So this week, and right up until July 4th, the Works Festival is happening in Edmonton in the downtown/Churchill Square area.  It's a great place to visit, lots of good art, okay art, and um.... shopping carts?  (You'll have to visit to see that piece).  But this year is really special as Mia helped the Ceramics Club team up with VASA (the University of Alberta's Visual Art Society) to create a show for this year's Works festival, entitled 'Human Energy: A Capacity for Fellowship'.  If you are interested in seeing some amazing ceramic pieces from a few of this year's grads, and, um... me, then check it out in the Stanley A. Milner Library, Site #5, in the Edmonton Room.  If you head down the stairs on the right-hand side once you come in the main doors and turn left at the bottom, you should see it.

Our Red Deer College students participating include, Mia Riley, K.T. Furness, Kaleb Romano, and Carlene La Rue.  Above I've attached a picture of Kaleb's piece.

The Works is one of MANY festivals that happen in Edmonton over the summer.  It's a great chance to attend and support the arts community, gather some ideas and inspiration, and absolutely support collaborations between our College and other post-secondary institutions.