Winter Warmers

handwoven scarf (Beryl Hickinbottom)

The nights are drawing in, the sun barely warms the land, frost decorates the eaves each morning .... brrr! chilly out.

What you need is a warming visit to the gift shop to banish those winter chills.
We have toasty and stylish scarves, handwoven by a local weaver, to accessorise your cold weather clothing.
We have warming glass votives for maing your living room snug in the dark evenings.
We have handthrown mugs for that steaming hot chocolate at the end of the day.

Do visit :)
PS: our full Christmas Marketplace will be open from the beginning of December with extra late night shopping times :)

glass votive (Margret Billings), blooms photo tile and print (Sarah Ronald), ceramic beaker (Dan Severance)

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas soon

intarsia picture (Del Holbrook)

Welcome to the Blackberry Gift Shop
Christmas is on its way! and so is our Christmas Marketplace ;)

Horses For Courses

......
and of course horses as gifts.

We are very lucky to have some amazing artists who can capture the essence of all things equine.
Artist Cathy Rycroft, who is one half of a race horse training duo at Hastings Park in her other life, captures the smooth physique of the equine athlete in her paintings on stone. Her work is also available as unframed prints so please check out the folders beneath the cards in the gift shop.

Another artist who captures the spirit of horses in her work is photographer Tracy Riddell. She was also our featured artist in September where she explained how her striking images have been used to promote animal welfare.

Moving on to 3D art, we have carver Tom Reid also exploring the equine form with this magnificent horse head carving. Tom works in a variety of stones; this carving is in serpentine.

Why not come in this evening to check them out in person? - new exhibitions are opening at the Arts Centre this evening so the gift shop will be open 6 - 8pm.

Lest We Forget

Bloom Poppy, Vicki Allesia

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

(Futility by Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918)


The "Lacrymosa" from Britten's War Requiem. 
Soprano, Makvala Kasrashvili. Tenor, Anthony Rolfe Johnson
conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, Royal Albert Hall 1993

For The Birds

driftwood sculpture (Pat de Couto)

stone carving (Tom Reid)

The gift shop is going to the birds IMO. It's like a flock of assorted avians descended on the shelves one night (in the cleanest possible way, I hasten to add).

So incredibly "tweet" ....

painting (Elizabeth Wallace)

rooster (Tracy Riddell)

But I'm sending in the cat ;)

stone carving (Tom Reid)

Wordless Wednesday: A Prickly Subject

spikey orange caterpillar photo tile from Sarah Ronald

 
pumpkin reminder, anyone?

Christmas is only so many sleeps away, and the shopping days are numbered! This year we'd really love you to shop local, shop handmade ..... and where better to start than the Blackberry Gift Shop in the Port Moody Arts Centre.

Please mark your calendars for our grand Christmas marketplace - opening the evening of December 2nd and continuing (with late shopping nights Wednesday to Friday) until the 23rd.

If you're either impatient to get festive or wanting to meet the overseas shipping deadlines take note; the gift shop will be getting seasonal from the beginning of November. Our artists are already delivering their new Christmas work to our vault and the Arts Centre tree, decorated with handmade trimmings for sale, will be in place November 15th.

Season's greetings :)