Monday, May 12, 2014

Late Night Shopping: Among Robots and the Abstruse


Why not spend a creative summer evening with us at the opening reception for Port Moody Arts Centre's new exhibitions this Thursday, May 15th?
The reception, free to attend, opens at 6pm and the gift shop will be manned for your retail pleasure.
As well as taking a look at the new artwork on the gallery walls, don't forget to see what the Blackberry Artist's Society featured artist has been up to. Tom Reid's work is on display so this evening is a great opportunity to get to know the bears.
They don't bite, and you won't be disappointed.
See you on Thursday!


Friday, May 9, 2014

Down At City Hall: Paper Artist, Joan Marr


The City of Port Moody very graciously keeps display space for the Blackberry Artist's Society at City Hall. This month, the display shelves tucked into the landing between reception and the upper floor council offices are filled to the brim with ... paper!

But not just any old paper. This is work by paper artist extraordinaire, Joan Marr. You may have seen her in action at the Port Moody Arts Centre open house in March where you probably made a sheet or two of paper sculpture with your kids.

Joan takes the art of papier mache, the messy and kid-approved sculpting medium, and elevates it into the amazing. As well as making sheets of paper out of recycled pulp and forming them into cards and bookmarks, Joan also moulds the paperclay into masks then decorates them. She also makes larger sculptures, incorporating other media such as glass and beads into her work. If you were lucky enough to catch her featured artist display in the gift shop a year or so ago, you will be familiar with the large geode formations she presented there. There are a couple of similar miniature versions in the display case for you to check out.

Joan is a long-standing Blackberry member who also creates textile art for the gift shop. At Christmas she breaks out the knitting, producing hat and scarf sets for our Christmas Marketplace. I wonder if she'll knit us matching sets for the Port Moody parade coming up in June that we're taking part in?

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Thursday, May 1, 2014

May's Featured Artist: Tom Reid

Tom Reid carving stone
Tom Reid demonstrates stone carving

The middle of a rock is often different from what we see and finding the true colour inspires me. I began carving after seeing the many varieties of carving stone featured at the annual B.C. Gem & Mineral Show in 1974. 

Tom Reid's carving demo
Polishing a chrysocolla frog

My carvings mostly reflect birds, fish and wild animals carved from soapstone, alabaster, jade, etc. I participate in a jade carving symposium and several 'stone sculpture' seminars and have been demonstrating soapstone and jade carving at the B.C. Gem and Mineral show for the past 20 years.

Click here to view in browser and to see a slide show of Tom's work.