Play Date

It was a treat to spend last Friday with Danielle Fraser from Her Painted Word. 

Danielle is a fellow Northerner, she lives about 1.5 hours North of here. 
We spent the whole day wondering around the downtown core, going from gallery to gallery, eating lunch, having tea & talking non-stop about our art & businesses. 

Most of the artists we admire, consider pals and who make up the majority of our artistic support circles live far far away from our little Northern towns, scattered around the world but mostly in the U.S. 

Before meeting Danielle, I was the only one in the area, that I know of anyways, that has a blog, an etsy shop and all that jazz, so honestly, at times, it can feel a tad isolating and quite desolate in terms of artistic support and understanding. 

I am so so glad I tracked her down and got up the courage to send her that first

'Heh do you live near North Bay' email, ha ha...
And that Danielle was friendly enough to say
'Heh I am coming to North Bay, wanna meet up". 

Hope your all feeling brave enough to forge some new connections this week.

XO An inspired and happy Bijou

My Friend Arlington Hoffman

Hi Everyone, well it's Friday and the week whizzed by without feeling very productive and that makes me uncomfortable, but what can you do....just not dwell on it, see it as a restful week and plan to be more proactive the next week, right? right!

So my little friend Penelope is still not ready to make her appearance, next week for sure. I don't want to rush any images just for the sake of having new imagery to post on here. And since coloured pencil is a timely medium, well hopefully you'll all thinks she's worth the wait.

So today, I wanted to show you some of the work of my dear friend, mentor and 'adopted' grandfather figure Arlie Hoffman. To say that Arlie is a beloved figure in our city is an understatement. Every one who meets Arlie falls in love with him. He is so so talented and he likes to share that talent with people, he is always welcoming people into his studio, always open to give pointers or show other artists how he creates. He is just a wonderful human being and I am proud and blessed and happy to call him a dear friend.

Arlie had a show this past month at the Calander Heritage Museum, which myself, Jon and a couple friends biked out to see. Today I want to show you the photos from the show, just to give you a brief glimpse of this artists amazing talents.

Arlie, works in oil paints and watercolour but for this show he also dived into some assemblages and photo transfers onto canvas as well. Standing amidst a collection of Arlie's work honestly brought tears to my eyes. I was struck again, of the vast talent of my dear and lovely friend.

I shared a studio space with Arlie for a couple of months at the WKP Kennedy Gallery, a couple years back and it was just wonderful, as much as his work and person inspired me, he found inspiration in my work as well and it was just a really good partnership. I will jump on any oppourtunity to share a studio with Arlie again.

When I left my job as Gallery Co-coordinator, where again, I worked closely with Arlie, he surprised me with this lovely painting as a parting gift. It was hard to tell Arlie that I was leaving the Gallery, I was so worried that I was letting him down. But he is still there, at the Gallery and in my opinion they are lucky as hell to have him. (sorry for the incorrect rotation).

A couple of years ago, I also worked on the Winter Wonderland Carousel with Arlie. He was the head-painter and I the understudy...we met at the carousel studio 2 to 3 times a week for a few hours to get our creature done in time. Over all, it took over 70 hours and was just a wonderful experience...to spend time with Arlie like that, to paint such a lovely carving, to spend time in the fanciful world of carousel creatures and their makers. Here is the fox that we painted.

First it needed some sanding, and plastering...just an over all smoothing out before applied the base coat of white.

Arlie, trusted me to do the top saddle design and also mix up the colour of the blue under saddle. It really was such a collaborative effort which made it every funner, I think.

Now our beautiful fox sits serendipitously next to the beautiful rabbit, on the carousel.

So if your ever in North Bay, come ride the fox...or any of the amazing creatures on either of North Bay's world famed Carousel's.

I am excited to be part of an upcoming exhibition which is made up of the Carousel artists. And to also possibly work on another creature with Arlie this coming fall.

I could go on and on about dear Arlie, but I'll stop here and let you bask in his talent. I wish you could all meet him, for every one's life truly is better for having him in it. Arlie, love to you my excellent friend and thank you.