Trained as a graphic artist, Marilyn’s love of animals and nature led her to the world of sculpture.

Her passion for sculpting inspires her to translate traditional animal forms into her own interpretation using soft flowing lines and strokes to transform the hard stone into a tactile animal that almost demands to be stroked.

Marilyn works extensively with soapstone and alabaster from around the world.

She creates pieces with a strong contemporary feel that are full of movement centered upon the structure and colour of the stone she is working with.

Her carvings reflect her love of western Canada’s wilderness and its endless array of inspirational subjects

Eric continues to share his culture, skills, and knowledge through his work as the First Nations Connections Worker at Port Hardy Secondary School where he teaches water-based navigation and woodworking classes for students interested in carving paddles.

A distinctive feature of much of the work is the medium itself: laminated stone in a multitude of forms. An innovator in this approach, Gatin has gradually been expanding his repertoire by developing and refining new techniques with each new series of projects. Both the process and the resulting medium have influenced the subject matter of the work, which tends to draw attention to the composite nature of objects and ideas.

The work seeks to integrate as many of the artist’s disparate interests as possible, combining parallel fascinations with geometry, architecture and design alongside history, literature and philosophy. Gatin sees art as having a central role in the human experience, as essential as the basic necessities of life or as such concepts as ‘imagination’ or ‘society’. The practice of art therefore, is intrinsically connected with everything else in the artist’s attentive experience.

Gatin has participated in group shows and shown in numerous galleries on the West coast and in Winnipeg. His work resides in private collections throughout Canada and the US, as well as in Europe and Central America.

Kent Laforme a Japanese Canadian artist known for his contemplative marble
sculptures.
“Marble is my chosen medium for exploring the newness of something that has existed in one form or another since the beginning of time. The nature of this material resonates with the void, and offers a glimpse into the creation of something true. The origins of the material are the essence of my work and at the heart of my process. Somewhere, within the limits and possibilities of a stone, dwells a language beyond time and space. This is where I search for the shape of my ideas. “
Laforme’s work is influenced by Canadian artist John Greer and Japanese American artist Isamu Noguchi.
Laforme’s artwork has been exhibited in New York, Hong Kong, Italy and across Canada. His work is represented by the Elliot Louis gallery in Vancouver, Canada.

Solo & Two-Person Exhibitions
2014 Temporal Landmarks-Two-Person Exhibition, Gage Gallery, Victoria, BC
2009 Altissimo — Solo Exhibition, Elliott Louis Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1999 1999 Frames of Hong Kong – Two-Person Exhibition, Fringe Gallery, Hong Kong
1998 After Truce – Two-Person Exhibition, Fringe Gallery, Hong Kong
1998 One Concept, Two Artists — Two-Person Exhibition, Artist Commune Gallery, Hong Kong
1994 Echoes and Horizons — Solo Exhibition, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, NS Group Exhibitions
2020 Penticton Public Art Program, Penticton, BC
2020 Castlegar Sculpture Walk, Castlegar, BC
2015 Sculpture Splash, Victoria, BC
2014 Sculpture Splash, Victoria, BC
2010 Objectified, Pelham Art Center, NYC, NY
2005 Atlantic Stone Sculpture Symposium Exhibition, Inverness Arts Center, NS
1998 Between the Like and Unlike, Artist Commune, Hong Kong
1997 The Yellow Pages Great Wall, Open-Air Sculpture, Hong Kong
1997 The Art of Politics, Le Mistral Gallery, Hong Kong
1995 Foreign Artists in Italy, La Badia Monastery, Camaiore, Italy
1994 Mare e Marmo, Open-Air Sculpture Exhibition, Forte Dei Marmi, Italy
1994 NSCAD Grad Exhibition, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, NS
1994 Mosaic, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, NS
1992 Peep Show, OO Gallery, Halifax, NS
Selected Media and Publications
2020 Council approves wolf sculpture for Cattle Point- Oak Bay News
2020 Oak Bay considers Takaya sculpture. artists honour lone wolf
2020 Stone Takaya sculpture could soon howl at Cattle Point
2020 Penticton Public Art Program 2020
2020 Italian Marble at home in Penticton
2020 Castlegar Sculpture Walk
2019 Sidney LitFest – An evening with Kent Laforme and Ruth James
2019 CBC 11 children’s books to check out this summer
2019 CanLit for Young Canadians- Book Review
2019 Prince Harry and family spotted vacationing in Victoria – Paseka book
2019 At Home Librarian- Paseka book review
2019 Sidney LitFest 2019
2019 Paseka review- Working Mommy Journal
2019 Book Time- Paseka review
2019 Paseka, a Little Elephant, Brave, Book Illustrations
2016 Mountains with Mountains. Oswego Building, James Bay Beacon
2014 Where Magazine “Temporal Landmarks”, Craig Spence, Fall Issue
2010 “MinusSpace Reductive Art”, Sylvan Leoni, February 3;
2009 iTunes Podcast, Elliot Louis Gallery, Ted Lederer, September 29;
2009 Kristen Krimmel Blog http://artiseternal.wordpress.com/category/sculpture/;
2008 Artist Series Video “It’s All About Art”, Ted Lederer;
2008 Where Magazine “In the Footsteps of the Masters”, Ted Lederer, Summer Issue;
2007 Times Colonist, “Oswego”, C2, April 22;
2005 Espace Magazine “Sculpting a Philosophy”, p. 45-46, Donna D’Amour, Summer Issue;
2005 Atlantic Stone Carving Catalogue, “Inverness Centre for the Arts”, Vanessa Paschakarnis;
2005 Inverness Oran, “Stone Symposium”, Frank McDonald, August 31;
1997 World Sculpture News Magazine, Summer Issue Selected Commercial and Public Commission Work
2020 Soul of a Wolf- stqéyə, Cattle Point, Victoria, BC
2014: Marble Column and Kite, Pillar of Ability. Vancouver BC
Commissioned by the BC Centre for Ability.
2011: Furito, Victoria, BC
Commissioned to create sculpture by Colliers International.
2006: Stone’s Throw, Sidney, BC
Commissioned to carve two outdoor granite sculptures for Stone’s Throw townhouse by Roads End Contracting.
2006: Oswego Hotel (Landmark Law Group), Victoria, BC
Commissioned to carve two outdoor marble sculptures for the Oswego Hotel.
2005: Port Hawkesbury Civic Center, Port Hawkesbury, NS

Symposium outdoor marble sculpture selected to be installed at the Community Civic Center.
2005: Atlantic Stone Carving Symposium, Cape Breton, NS
Worked as one of eight Canadian artists selected for the National Sculpture
Symposium.
2004: Custom House Global Foreign Exchange, Trophy for the Canada Rugby
Sevens MVP
Commissioned to design and create one principal bronze trophy, and four secondary trophies, to be awarded to Rugby Canada’s Player of the Year and the Canadian Rugby Sevens MVP.
2004: Cinque Terre, English Bay, Vancouver, BC
Commissioned to create an outdoor marble fountain sculpture with water feature for the Cinque Terre residences.
2003: Interlude Spa, Halifax, NS
Commissioned to create three indoor marble sculptures.
1996: Korean Business Air Services (KBAS), Seoul, South Korea
Commissioned to create an indoor black granite sculpture for the lobby of KBAS office building in South Korea.
Professional Sculpture Assistant
1996 Pietrasanta, Italy, Canadian artist John Greer (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Canada)
1995 Pietrasanta, Italy, Taiwanese artist Cynthia Sah (Museum of Taiwan, Taiwan)
1993 Zurich, Switzerland, Japanese artist Akiko Sato (Museum Bellerive, Switzerland)

Education. Scholarships and Grants
1990 to 1994 Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), BFA, Halifax, NS
1993 to 1994 NSCAD, Independent Off-Campus Study Program, Pietrasanta, Italy
1987 to 1990 John Abbott College, D.E.C Fine Arts, Montreal, QC
1993 to 1996 Studio Leonardi, Pietrasanta, Italy
1998 Hong Kong Arts and Development Council, Artist Exhibition Grant
1993 NSCAD, William Peters Scholarship
1992 NSCAD, Centennial Scholarship

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Through the development of my work, I have been able to observe the interaction of individuals as they relate to the details of each sculpture. The use of these materials brought to my attention the interaction the audience has with each individual sculpture. Some of the viewers are drawn to the recognition of materials that were identifiable from their everyday lives, while others preferred pieces that have been altered so that the original components were no longer easily recognizable. It was these two reactions that inspired me to explore this tension in my development process.

Until recently, I have been focusing on creating works that have very few recognizable components, but decided to exaggerate aspects of them to become feature components of the sculptures. Certain attributes, such as a sharp angle of a chair arm or the curve of a wheel arch, help determine the visual flow of the piece. Certain mechanical components are integrated into the sculptures not only for the aesthetic qualities, but also for their relation to movement. The sculpture is able to strip away the functionality of the individual components to emphasize their aesthetic merit. The outcome is to reinforce the idea that any material can go through a metamorphosis and become contrary to its formal existence.

TV Interviews:

CV

Public Work:

– “Linotype Wapiti” – City of Castlegar, Castlegar, B.C

– “Exodus” – Castlegar, B.C, Canada

– “Breaching Orca III” – Hastings House, Salt Spring Island, B.C

– “Breaching Orca” – City of Nanaimo, Nanaimo, B.C

– “Roaming Deer” – City of Nanaimo, Nanaimo, B.C

– “Breaching Orca II” – San Juan Museum of Art, San Juan Islands, WA, USA

– “Sentinel” – Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA

– “Ascension” – Salt Spring Arts Council, Salt Spring Island, B.C (Private Collection)

Awards:

– 2012 – “2nd place, Juried Show” for “Dive II” – SRAM pArt Project 2012

– 2011 – “Peoples’ Choice Award” for “Linotype Wapiti – Castlegar Sculpturewalk 2011

– 2010 – “Juror Choice Award” for “Avocet” – Sidney Fine Art Show 2010

– 2010 – “Juror Choice Award” for “Vicissitude” – Sidney Fine Art Show 2010

– 2009 – “Best 3-Dimensional in Show” – Sidney Fine Art Show 2009

Academic History:

– 2004 – 2008 – University of Victoria – Visual Arts, Business

– 2002 – 2003 – Victoria College of Art – Courses in Visual Art and Art History.

– 2002 – 2003 – Camosun College- Courses from the Science and Humanities Faculties

Morley Myers was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1956, and grew up primarily in the Medicine Hat region. A self-taught sculptor, Morley has been working with stone since 1991 and has been involved in exhibits on the west coast and has displayed in both Canadian and US galleries.

When creating a sculpture from a raw block of stone Myers often starts with the fault line, the unruly fracture, or some other perceived defect, not in order to make a correction, but rather to initiate a process of discovery.

The chisel is guided into a series of moves and countermoves; shapes emerge and disappear and a hidden three-dimensional poetry is, in the end, revealed. Myers is like the archer who, though he knows where he is aiming his arrow, ultimately retains a certain indifference to its exact destination. The work is meticulously composed but open. If this approach sounds like the working method of a previous era – it is precisely that. Myers is one of a growing number of artists who have been struck by the disappointing results of the “new critical” artistic forms and styles. When compared to the art produced in the first part of the 20th century, it is hard not to notice that the results of postmodernism are sometimes little more than sociologically inspired one-liners with perhaps limited durability. Over the last 30 years postmodern critics have tended to emphasize the disruptions and downplay the continuities. This has lead, in certain quarters, to the belief that the art of the past is merely historical artifact, lacking in aliveness or contemporary relevance. Given the relative paucity of durable results, dealing in recoveries, re-developments and extensions is not only valid but perhaps necessary. In a conscious effort to disengage with the new orthodoxy, Myers has investigated anew pre-postmodern strategies and methods.

Before settling on his current approach, Myers experimented with several artistic methods of the recent past. At one point, for instance, he took up the welding of found objects after being inspired by an exhibition of Anthony Caro but found the results lacking in the essential qualities he was looking for.

He then reached further into the past, eventually coming upon a territory of high experimentation. It was here, among works by Picasso, Moore, Brancusi and Smith, that Myers not only found inspiration but a fertile ground of unrealized possibilities. An effort to redevelop and extend what he saw – and felt – in these sculptures began. The project became to see what emerged when, without seeking to pastiche or imitate in a nostalgic way, an artist immersed in postmodern culture takes up a working method that privileges experience over “reading”.

Postmodernist sculpture relies, in general, upon symbols and their play to convey its meaning while Myers’ work evolves from a more direct encounter with the material itself. By beginning with what he identifies as “the defect”, Myers initiates a process of salvage or recovery. In the moulding of each “recovered” shape Myers puts into play both that which is already there and that which is anticipated but not yet realized. His compositional skills have, in addition, been finely honed by 20 years of hands-on experience with the chisel.
His work is rich and sensuous, inviting the viewer to walk around it in order to experience how the individual forms emerge and dissolve, how they impact each other, how they influence the whole.

Morley’s style is a unique blend of cross-cultural primitive imagery. He says, “I feel the primal aspect of my work touches everyone on a basic level. Living on Salt Spring Island since 1989, I have had many opportunities to enjoy and be influenced by many of the artists that reside here.”

His work is currently represented exclusively on Salt Spring Island at Gallery 8.

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Graham grew up in various towns in Alberta, spending time with Cree relatives living in the old ways. Observing the lifestyle of his grandfather, a herbalist and trapper, Graham saw a man who lived a simple life surrounded by nature right up until his death at nearly one hundred years of age. Graham left school early to join his father’s line of work at the opening of the aluminum smelter in Kitimat, BC. His father, a former RAF pilot in World War II, traveler and avid reader, had many stories of his early years in northern trading posts where he learned the Cree language. After joining the army and travelling across Canada, Graham worked at various jobs across Canada finally settling in the Great Lakes. Here he took up the trade as a house and sign painter.

Graham enjoyed sketching and had met and been influenced by A.Y. Jackson as a youth in Yellowknife and was inspired to attend the Alberta College of Art in 1965. After 1 1/2 years at the College, Graham headed back to the road, moving from Victoria to Whitehorse, the Queen Charlotte Islands, White Rock and once more across Canada to the Expo ’67 in Montreal, spending some time in Fredericton, NB. While he traveled, Graham never put down his pencil and sketchbook, studying people, reading books and observing the Hippie, Black and Red Power movements. Graham produced numerous books of pencil sketches and began to produce large, brightly colored paintings depicting the social commentaries of the time, with hands being a dominant and recurring theme in his works. As a child care worker involved with Native children and befriending a former traditional Nootka dancer, Graham began reestablishing some of his Cree roots during the Seventies. By 1976 when he moved to the west side of Wells Grey Park, he concentrated on creating wood sculptures although he continued to paint the local forests. He carved canes of local wood, using multi-image themes like his paintings; images evolving spontaneously as the wood designated. Graham was awarded first prize in the cane division of the CNE in 1980. He carves fictitious portraits on burls, again following natural contours and using what nature provides for drama or humour.

Encouraged by a friend and his brother to work in soapstone, he began carving full-time in 1982. More of Graham’s Cree background and Native heritage is depicted with the integration of the symbols nature displays. His inspiration comes from the existing shape of the stone before he commences carving. Graham feels he is fortunate to live in an area where he can participate in the Native culture, reemerging ancient traditions relating to the Creator.

Keeping relationships between people as a dominant theme, Graham now also enjoys carving the animals which he has the opportunity to encounter in the area in which he lives, the Cariboo region of central British Columbia. He enjoys the company of his wife Virginia, a painter, and their three children: Demian, Mikara and Aaron.

EDUCATION

2000 Portrait Sculpture, Morag McLean, Vancouver Academy of Art
1999 Photo images on clay, Andrew Wong, Mechosin International Summer School
1998 Mold Making, Vernon Gemmell-Smith, Vancouver Academy of Art
1997 Sculpure Figurative, Bill Porteous
1996 Casting, clay relief, Santo Mignosa
1995 Estrucan Hand Building, Zeljko Kujundzic Northern School of the Arts
1979 – 1983 Ceramic Department, University of Alberta

EXHIBITIONS

2016 JOY, Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
2010 “West Coast Cravings” with Nikol Haskova, Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
2004 White Rock Gallery, White Rock, BC
2000 Morgan Dawne Gallery, North Vancouver, BC
1999 Group Show, Vancouver Academy of Art

COLLECTIONS

British Columbia Institute of Technology
Delta Municipal Hall
Numerous private collections in Canada, USA, Germany, Holland and Grand Cayman Islands

PUBLICATIONS

2016 ARABELLA Summer Harvest                                                                                    2004 Preview Gallery Guide
2004 November issue, Peace Arch News

Arabella Magazine Summer 2016

Surrounded by the rain-forest, mountains, trees, and family, CG is thrilled to be living in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. With such a vast array of forest vegetation, outdoor activities, and great relationships, there is no end to the inspiration for her artistic endeavours. Hiking through trails and swimming in the forest’s secret pools are her favourite ways of spending time in BC’s truly great outdoors.

“In my past life I played the harp and worked in fashion retailing so being surrounded by beautiful city clothes was my artistic starting point. But here on Salt Spring I am surrounded by the beauty of nature so I work to juxtapose the two, preferably on a very small scale. It is a way of connecting the past with the present and wondering how it will all turn out.

For silk fusion I lay out dyed silk fibres and fuse them together with a textile medium to make sheets which I then dampen and mold into shapes. Recently, I have discovered how versatile gut is, even though it handles like wet plastic wrap. My husband and many other people help me in ‘shopping’ for natural materials from farms, beaches and the woods but the ‘fibre’ is where I begin.”

Exhibitions

2004 Artspring Anniversary Show, Salt Spring Island, BC
2006 “Grand Ideas”, American Tapestry Alliance, Grand Rapids, MI
2006 “e:motion” , Saltspring Island, BC
2006 “Eye for Colour”, Saltspring Island, BC
2007 Silksters’ Gallery, Treenway Gallery website
2009 The Loft Gallery, Maple Bay, BC Warmland Calligraphers’ Guild Show