About Canada

This weekend is the Food and Wine Festival in Banff. It’s a really good weekend.

This week we have made the store window along a theme of food and drink and I thought I would share with you a lovely new line that we picked up this year.

It is hand built pottery from Nancy Hilborn.

I particularly like the pistachio bowl, in the rich cinnamon colours. (You fill one side with nuts and the other with the resulting empty shells).

As one side fills and the other empties it leads to the question – are you a half full or half empty kind of person?

Let me know if you like it.

          

I like reading the various wildlife pages. One of my favourites is the Highway Wildlife blog. A recent post of theirs got national media coverage for the photograph of a lynx on an overpass on the highway.

However another photo on the same blog, that I really liked was the mystery of the lynx walking through fences!

On the subject of the lynx I thought you might like an image from Nathalie Parenteau. It is a limited edition called Northern Birch Forest.

Let me know if you like it.

          

Over the last week there have been some great photos of the Northern Lights, due to the solar activity. By coincidence at About Canada we have received another delivery of Northern light paintings by First Nation artist Jasyn Lucas.

I think my favourite must be Illusion

It is similar to one that came in, and sold immediately a few weeks ago. It makes me imagine lying in a clearing watching the Northern Lights above me.

Let me know if you like it and check out the others at Original paintings

          

Last week, on Pinterest I pinned a photo from the local paper.

I realised afterward how like an image from West Coast artist Sue Coleman it is. The title of Sue’s piece is Relief, which I think, says it all.

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I love the way her subjects and totems interact.

Do you like it?.

          

Nicole Iff is a local artist that we have taken on at About Canada

We have taken on a range of Nichole’s prints, the originals are oil paintings.

I particularly like “Sleepy Bear”

It reminds me that it won’t be long until the bears around Banff start to wake up.

Do you like it?.

          

This weekend it is Family Day, here in Alberta.

So I thought I would show the neat poster from Cori Ross

We are Family

Let me know if you like it.

Family Day is observed in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan on the third Monday of February. It’s a holiday to celebrate the importance of families and family life to people and their communities. (Manitoba actually officially celebrates Louis Riel Day, but many people call it Family Day.)

          

I came across Pinterest recently and have become a bit addicted. Its a sort of social digital scrapbook, thats growing like crazy, if you haven’t heard of it.

It is simple in that images you like, across the web, you “pin” and others can like, comment or repin to their own interest boards. It’s quite compulsive!

Anyway I have become so taken with it that I have added a pin button to each product page. Feel free to pin your favourite products to your boards.

If you are on Pinterest, you can .

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On Christmas Day it is a tradition for a lot of local families to ski Norquay for an hour or two. (In the UK we would go to the pub, but this is more wholesome).

If if you know Norquay you will know the North American. At the top is a tea house, which reopened just this year. Some people think its crazy to attempt the North American at all. In 1966 Rudi must have had more than a few loose screws to hike up above the tea house to do a jump from the top, captured on film by Bruno Engler.

Do you like it?. All I can say is wow!, and have a good (and safe) Christmas.

          

One of favourite artists, Faith Harckham always produces lovely work. The latest is Mother Grizzly And Cub. I love the sense of power and movement that comes from fairly simple lines and rich earthy colours.

Do you like it?.