Homage Monday - Nicole Maas

Nickie is a certain kinda someone - like a legend. She works and plays fields traditionally dominated by men and, well, dominates :) She is pretty awesome! Usually I will use selected portions of what an artist sends for this article but with Nickie there is sooooo much and it is all soooo good! Inside industry information, espionage, babies, passion...it's all here for the reading, thanks Nickie:

Ok, so... bio. Present to past? Past to present?

Past to present...

 I slogged away in design school at Emily Carr for 5 years and graduated from the Graphic Design dept. Took a co-op role with Electronic Arts in 1996 and fell in love with the video game industry. After a year at EA I went back to Emily Carr and finished my program in 1997, and then took at job at Radical Entertainment. Worked as the studio front end (interface design) lead for 3 years and left in 2000 to delve into the up and coming world of web design in Austin, TX. In 2001 the dot com crash hit hard and I found myself pining away for games again. Headed back to Vancouver and fell back into a spot as the interface design lead for NHL on the PC. Worked on the NHL franchise from 2002 to 2006 before moving over to work on a little known console called the Nintendo Revolution. The Revolution is now commonly know as the Wii and I helped to create Madden 07, a launch title for the Wii. It was the number three rated Wii game that year.

During Madden Wii I was hungry to move into art direction, territory previously un-touched by interface designers within EA. I worked my way through the position of Art Lead (which was overseeing and directing all aspects of game art; concept, animation, environments, characters, effects and front end) for a couple of Nintendo DS titles, and got a shot at art directing a short-cycle title called FIFA Street 3 for the Nintendo DS. After FS3 I led Celebrity Sports Showdown for the Wii, which was a fantastic but little known title that fell victim to poor timing and no marketing dollars for launch, so we found ourselves prey to the dust bunnies on the bottom shelves of the game stores :( . Coincidentally Nintendo - who gets a behind the scenes look at all the Wii games in production across the globe - came out with a game called Wii Sports Resort which was virtually identical to our game, but much better marketed and featured the Nintendo Miis (instead of obscure celebrities like Keith Urban and Kristy Yamaguchi) canoeing and flying little jet planes on an island sports resort. Hmmm... coincidence? Anyway, I left near the end of that title to have my brilliant baby. After a year I came back from mat leave to mixed titles including EA Sports Active and FIFA Online. I'm now currently art directing two undisclosed FIFA titles that will ship in late 2011.

Amidst all that I purchased a small dog daycare business in 2004 which I worked with my husband to turn into Pup Culture Dog Daycare, which he proudly continues to operate.

Over the past 5 years I have worked with my vizsla, Zuzu, in competition obedience and agility as well as tracking, field and conformation. This past summer we competed at the 2010 Canadian National Agility Championships and she recently earned her Master Agility Dog of Canada title. I also have a beagle whom I trial at Masters level in agility. In addition I have been providing obedience training through the daycare in my (ha ha) spare time. I've played Ultimate (frisbee) recreationally and competitively for the past 14 years (US Regionals 2001, World Ultimate Club Championships 2002, Canadian Nationals 2004) and continue to captain and participate in rec leagues to get my weekly cardio. 

I am a mother (now single) who also bakes, draws, reads, writes, cooks, and most of all... LEARNS. I love to be challenged and I'm inspired by passion. Passion for pretty much anything turns my crank. I am addicted to "busy", and I am fired by gorgeous and innovative design.

My role models have been many, but most importantly, my mother who always said "Only boring people are bored." and taught me that we are responsible for our own happiness, and when we feel our spark burning out we need to "do something constructive!" And so, I go, I do, I love, I learn. That's me. :)

Homage Monday - Matthew Erickson

Matthew Erickson - IMBD 

I have been writing these Homage Mondays for a few weeks now and with every article I feel increasingly blessed to have shared a moment of my life with these incredible artists. This is especially true of Matt. He is easily one of the most fascinating people I have ever met - and I cannot help but think that meeting him was a touch of serendipity.

When I was a knee-high my parents started the Castor Little Theatre company in Castor, Alberta. I loved the smells, sounds and spectacle of the theatre. I still do. After moving to Calgary I adored heading to the Rosebud Theatre  for dinner and a show. It pulled on my heart in a special way. I would later discover it was Matt's parents who founded this iconic establishment in Rosebud, Alberta.

Charming, humble, funny and disarmingly handsome, Matthew Erickson was raised in this small arts community. He says that growing up in Rosebud made him an actor by default. He has performed theatre and opera, training in Canada and abroad. 

Photo by Jesse Hutch

Seemingly random (cause that is how he rolls!) yet nonetheless a wicked important side note about the man: Matthew spent six months as a lay Franciscan monk. Trying to live a life of chastity, prayer, and poverty is pretty difficult in a modern setting. Since Franciscans cannot touch money, Matthew signed all his paychecks over to his roommate and lived simply off of prayer and charity.  His Utopian life came to a crashing halt around tax season( <-- also the telltale sign one is an actor), when he was thrust back into the world of filthy lucre.  When you ask him about this experience, he usually just mumbles quietly and looks into the distance. 

Add to this that Matthew plays the banjo, is a Civil Engineer, amateur boxer, edited for Bodog Fight, directs for film and television, fences competitively - which is where he met his exceedingly lovely wife and future Olympian, Mona. They are Lovers AND Fighters!!!!!! He has spent many hours voicing over characters from the Dragonball and Gundam series for legions english speaking fans. I know that this might be the first time you are hearing about the man but, if you google Matthew or happen to hit an Anime Convention in Vancouver  you will find he is already a legend.

To All the Rossland Ladies

Heather Good - www.heathergoodfineart.com

I have been so inspired by the women that populate this town since I have moved here. They are entrepreneurs, teachers, nurses, mothers, artists, adventurers, and more. Last night a new found friend brought me to Glee Club. Yes. Glee Club. And do you know who was there? Everyone, see above.

Michelle Tanguay

A few weeks ago another wonderful new friend, pictured right *gulp*, took me mountain biking (real mountain biking) for the first time since before I had popped out poppets. And do you know who we saw on the trails hiking, biking and berry picking? Other women. Again, see above.











There is a women's Roller Derby Team (Gnarlie's Angels), Women's Shuttle Night (a van takes/pulls women/bikes to the top of Red Mountain and they bike down) and on select evenings there is wine and chocolate at Mountain Nugget which is owned and operated by one of the towns  Womentrepreneurs Trish Dyer whom I featured in last weeks Artist Homage after the ride. The town is home to Stephanie Gauvin who is a a world class artist, and skier...and I am dying to meet her. There is even a town-wide ladies night out on occasion!

www.bettygohard.com

When all is said and done I am stoked to raise my daughter here surrounded by strong, compassionate, artistic, cultured, talented, athletic, self-sufficient women! The candy on the apple is really that the men of Rossland support the women and patronize (the good way!) our business endeavours. I always joke that the boys in town are ruined for life outside Rossland, the girls they were raised with could do anything they could do - and lots of times better :)

Homage Monday - Meg Sholdice

Meg Sholdice. Meg's Youtube channel.
I met Meg in Theatre School and have had the pleasure of sharing the stage with her on several occacsions, but what I really loved was getting a chance to sit back and enjoy her as an audience member. She is just so interesting - and funny. Like Catherine O'Hara funny...and I would be remiss if I failed to mention she is also Marilyn Monroe sexy! What Meg brings to the stage, or into a room which is rare and admiral is the power of her presence. She is very easy to watch.


After graduating from Mount Royal University Meg went south to pursue a 'real' career, "...the story goes like this, I was an actor but I was scared so I became a teacher..." At the University of Lethbridge Meg acquired both a Bachelor of Fine Arts AND a Bachelor of Education in 2005. 


Teaching did two things for Meg. First it helped her realize that she didn't want to give up acting entirely. In 2005 she started a improv theatre troupe for a hobby on the side. Then secondly, "...working with children, who have infinite potential, magnified my desire to follow my own dreams, so once again I am an actor."

Meg quit teaching to risk it all as a starving artist,  and her courage has paid off. She now bears the prestigious and highly coveted title of "Working Actor". In 08/09 she was even the Artistic Director of Alberta High School of Fine Arts.


Currently Meg is the Box Office Manager and heads the Educational Programming at the Pumphouse Theatre in Calgary, Alberta. She is an Artistic Director, Producer and Actor for Late Late Brakfast Show, and most recently she can be seen in the Shakespeare Company's latest production of the Scottish Play as one of the three witches. I highly recommend you get a ticket!

Homage Monday - Trish Dyer

Trish Dyer - Mountain Nugget Chocolate Company

London Fog

Trish Dyer is a Chocolatier. The sheer declaration that you are a chocolatier is weighty one.  Upon hearing this fantastical word my heart quickens and the corners of my mouth turn upward. I must admit I feel a bit like I am in a fairy tale to say I know a real Chocolatier! It is no small feat to harness the magic and potential that chocolate carries within itself - for many cannot. As an artist Trish boasts the uncanny ability to take a good thing and make it better. To take a dark shapeless mass and transform it into an exquisite, whimsical delicacy.  

Starry Night

Here in the picturesque Monashee Mountains Trish is inspired to create. She is rooted here and draws from the land where she herself has grown. Among the local organic ingredients she uses are Rossland garlic, Oso Negro Coffee roasted in Nelson,  and honey from the Creston valley. Trish is a local artist who actively supports other local industry. She is an avid gardener who is passionate about real-food and a believer in the roles of the baker,  the butcher,  and the candlestick maker. Her creations are really an extension of her person; lively, exciting, complex, mischievous and fun.
Most recently Les Dames d'Escoffier awarded their prestigious scholarship to Trish in recognition of her work and a fellow blogger and foodie The Well-Tempered Chocolatier sought out the Nugget on a trip to Rossland. 
If you happen through our happy little town the shop is a MUST! And if you are unable to make it to Rossland then you are in luck because Trish is making the rounds, peddling her rich morsels at fairs and festivals around BC. 
Be sure to Follow the Mountain Nugget on Facebook so you don't miss a thing!

Joe

Mountain Nugget Chocolate Company
2076 Columbia Avenue
Rossland, BC
250.362.3338

   

Homage Monday - Alyson Johnson

Alyson Johnson - www.alydahl.com 

When you see me bombing around town wearing this stunning piece of art around my neck and you ask where I got it, I'll tell you that my friend made it, and this is to whom I am referring. 


Aly Johnson has what it takes to make it in the financial world: smarts, grace, and mucho patience for man-babies parading around in business suits. The very skills, as it turns out, that are required to raise her two beautiful mensa-esque children, not that they are man babies, but they do parade around in their birthday suits! Having children changed Aly. Despite her prowess with the man-babies she discovered she would much rather teach her children well. This meant they needed to see her pursuing her dream not chasing her tail. Just like many of us Aly has had a few, "when one door closes, another is opened" moments, however what makes this dear friend exceptional is her Dorothy-like courage to move from monochrome into Technicolor.

But Dorothy was only dreaming and Aly is living her dream out loud. She has taken a hobby of 11 years and for the first time this past year, through her perseverance and strength of spirit,  she has made it into her full time job. In fact her burgeoning home-based industry is bursting at the seams and is in the process of branching out, maybe even in to your home! 
Aly has been featured in Island Child Magazine, as well as being listed as a designer to watch by Portobello West in Vancouver. If you are lucky enough to find yourself in Victoria you can witness the mouthwatering glamour in person by visiting Brandi Wein for Hair and there is even a coupon (have I mentioned my L-O-V-E of coupons!) in Mamma Mia's Coupon Book 

Aly's designs are at once inspired and inspirational, flirtatious and sophisticated, lively and feminine - they are breathtakingly beautiful. Visit www.alydahl.com.

Photography by Ashely Devaney and Alyson Johnson and is not to be used without prior permission

Guest Post - Brandie Weikle

I am thrilled to present the first guest post on ag.gray.gate! Brandie Weikle was featured earlier this week in the Artist Homage and without further adieu here is her article itself:


The kids are heading back to school this week, and I can’t help but yearn for some of that same newness that September brings when you’re young. Nervous tummies aside, who can forget the sense of possibility that came with that backpack of empty duo-tangs?

I took each of my boys, Cameron, 7, and little Alister, 3, on separate walks down to the little stationary shop on Bloor this weekend. My little guy is bound for Montessori school and in need of his first pencil case. And my first-born, now a “Grade Two-er,” needed the ritual purchase of new pencils, sharpener and glue stick, almost as much as he needed the reassurance that he was tall enough for second grade.

I’d love some new school supplies almost as much as a pair of nude platform pumps to complement my fall wardrobe. But while I don’t need a new binder (or, I guess, even the shoes - drat) I can satisfy that yearning with art supplies. So, I got a few new drawing pencils this weekend.

Because I’ve spent my whole career in journalism, and consider myself the most beginner of visual artists, it was a surprise when my sister wanted to feature me on her blog’s new weekly artist homage (secretly I’m thinking she was running out of people) and have me guest post the next day.

But then I got to thinking that maybe the subject of art doesn’t have to be that far off my usually parenting beat (I edit two websites for the Toronto Star, and write about a blog about parenting). All kids make art and all parents are capable of making art with their children.

When I was a little girl I was apparently quite easy to entertain with paper and crayons. I was forever trying to make snow globes out of jam jars and tiny bits of crumpled-up tin foil. I entered earnest little portraits of my best friend in the country fair. I painted posters to announce the rec-room premieres of my most recent plays.

Paintings by two grandparents decorated the walls of my homes growing up. In addition, we were also cottage neighbours (though we call them cabins no matter what their size out west) with artist/activist Wallis Kendal 

My most vivid memories of his artwork are of the canvasses that depicted what he saw on his trips to some of the most underdeveloped parts of the world. But artistically he’s now best known for his collaboration with Sandra Bromley on the Gun Sculpture http://www.gunsculpture.com/, an anti-violence installation made of 7,000 decommissioned weapons that has been exhibited around the world, including at the UN headquarters in New York and at the Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Peace Prize in Seoul, South Korea.

Wallis would occupy us on rainy days with papier mache projects, kept up an elaborate fantasy that there were elves in the forest surrounding the lake who we just missed meeting because it was bedtime, and let us make banana peel ice cream for a “gross-out” party. (Everyone should have an eccentric artist or two in their upbringing.)

When I was a teenager Wallis took me to buy my first proper camera, a second-hand Pentax K-1000. Then we tromped around Edmonton’s Fringe Festival so I could photograph all the colourful buskers and artists. I felt like SUCH a serious photo-journalist.

I can’t bring his artistic ability to the table, but I do cover mine in newsprint and bring the kids and their friends there to work with paint brushes, acrylic paints and canvasses that make them feel like real-deal artists.

We have kind of an awesome time.

No matter how big you are, you get to create.

We’re working on a gallery in our basement stairwell.

Doesn’t just looking at these supplies make you want to give it a go yourself?

I’m quite sure that the kid in you will look at a blank canvass and appreciate the possibilities.

Not a bad metaphor for life, really.


-Brandie Weikle

Homage Monday - Brandie Weikle

via parentcentral.ca

Today I have the honour of featuring one of my favourite artists, Brandie Weikle. Brandie is an immensely talented and ambitious writer, the fantastic mother of two young boys, helplessly beautiful,  a gifted painter, foodie, design guru, and brilliant as all get out. Brandie is also my sister, I simply adore her.


In Brandie's own words,"I am an online and print journalist with specialties in parenting and health. Currently I'm the editor of two of the Toronto Star's specialty websites, parentcentral.ca and healthzone.ca. I decided to be a journalist in about grade 10 or 11, after I started writing for my school newspaper. But the very first thing I ever wanted to be when I was a wee girl was "an artist." In high school I discovered that I didn't have the drawing skills for art or architecture as a profession, but I continued to have an aesthetic yearning for the whole paint and canvass experience. I think it runs in the family. As you know my Grandpa Weikle painted landscapes. So did my mom's mom, Edna, who died before I was born. I started buying canvasses and painting them as what I'd call "decor art" about 10 years ago and then in the last few years, started dabbling in abstract landscape and realism, particularly as I became interested in birds.".

Regarding the yellow bird image: Birds are my current favourite thing to draw and paint. I guess it was my interest in birds that interested me in spending time drawing and painting for the first time since childhood. This image is the other kind of multimedia in my life. The branch the bird sits on is created using cutouts from a magazine. The pieces are from a picture of a long full skirt by Coach. The iconic print is kind of deconstructed here and - if you blur your eyes - it kinda mimics the black and white colour contrast of a birch branch.

I selected the colours of this picture so I can hang it next to this landscape, which is painted from a photo I took on a drive from Calgary to Drumheller, on the way to the dinosaur museum, of course! People go all the way to Provence to photograph the sunflowers against the blue sky, but the same colour combination is available right on the Canadian prairies every summer with fields of canola against all that big sky. It was a windy day, and I liked the way the grasses in the ditch were moving in the foreground.

Later, I got the idea to paint a bird cage with the door open, over two canvasses, to hint at the idea that this might have been someone's domesticated canary gone free.
-Brandie Weike

Brandie lives and works in the Greater Toronto area. You can read her insightful and informative online blog at the Toronto Star. 

Homage Monday - Artists in Training

Children have an astounding capacity for art. It seems as though the world itself, this huge learning experience, is tangible to them through artistic endeavour. They are like tiny walking musicals. The rules that seem to bind a society into propriety do not apply and as much as children are sticklers for black and white, right and wrong, the idea that being covered in paint (or any media for that matter) from head to toe then breaking into song (and dance) would be abnormal does not occur to them. Yet. Thank goodness.

In this brief moment when we as parents, friends and pundits are training them to live inside the box (to  keep them happy and safe) they are blessedly on the fringes, balancing on the threshold of total freedom. Therein lies the rub. Teaching them to follow their bliss, but not into traffic. To nurture their artistic being, while shaping their social responsibility. To instill in them empathy, while maintaining self-worth. To teach a child to give of them self freely, without giving them self away.