About Canada

One of the neat things about working on the shop floor at our store About Canada is meeting the interesting artists that just wander in to see if we are interested in carrying their work.

One recent visitor was a photographer Patrick Price, from Cochrane Alberta. Patrick came in to show us his new book which is a beautiful ‘fly on the wall’ take on plains life, showing both work and the play.

My favourite photos from the book are:
The subtle couple.

The winter morning work

And the horse with a sense of humour.

There are so many more in the book that it was actually hard to choose.

Tell me which you like the best.

          

We have taken on a quirky line of ceramic from PMO Designs, which really are quite unusual.

With pastel colours and deliberately ‘dripped’ glaze these pisa leaning cups are a real conversation piece.


Tell me if you like these ‘drunken’ mugs.

          

The original works of Faith Harckham are always very popular in store, at About Canada. Faith is best known for her bears.

She has now released a limited edition giclee print on canvas titled Lean Wolf.

As ever, to me, she catches the essence of the creature with simple lines and bold colours. Let me know if you like it.

          

This weekend is Thanksgiving. For our non Canadian readers, Thanksgiving is on the second Monday in October and is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season.

Though the holiday is not as big a celebration in Canada as it is in the U.S., where Thanksgiving is the year\’s biggest holiday occasion. It is a popular time for Canadians to gather with family, it is also often a time for weekend getaways.

I thought it would be of interest, given the family element to the weekend, to show you 3 popular family themed presents.

Boris Kramer – Family Sculptures

Cori Ross – We are family poster

Nathalie Parenteau – Caribou Family Ltd Edition

Oh yes. For our Canadian readers, happy Thanksgiving !.

For those who are interested

Thanksgiving corresponds to the English and European Harvest festival, with churches decorated with cornucopias, pumpkins, corn, wheat sheaves, and other harvest bounty.

Many people use the three-day Thanksgiving weekend to visit family or friends who live far away, or to receive them in their own homes. Many people also prepare a special meal to eat at some point during the long weekend. Traditionally, this included roast turkey and seasonal produce, such as pumpkin, corn ears and pecan nuts.

The Thanksgiving weekend is also a popular time to take a short autumn vacation. This may be the last chance in a while for some people to use cottages or holiday homes before winter sets in. Other popular activities include: outdoor breaks to admire the spectacular colors of the Canadian autumn; hiking; and fishing. Fans of the teams in the Canadian Football League may spend part of the weekend watching the Thanksgiving Day Classic matches.

And its not just a European thing.

Canada\’s First Nations and Native Americans throughout the Americas, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Cree and many others organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America.

I hope you find this of interest. Let us know if you have any questions, click on the images to see more details.

Keep up to date by registering for blog updates or join us on facebook – http://www.facebook.com/aboutCanadaBanff

          

We have another new limited edition print from Denis Mayer Jr. I love his work.

This one is another Red Fox.

The original, which is still in print, was A Touch of Warmth

The new one is Sly Wonderer

I think his skill is amazing.

Do you have a favourite between these two?.

          

Our neighbours closed out last week. It’s the third time the store next door has been closed in 2 years – these are still hard times that we live in – but we carry on thanks to our great customers.

On a brighter note the landlords have kindly let us use their window. As it is the Subaru Triathlon this weekend we thought we would add some runners of our own.

I am a terrible runner but I’d be interested to know how many readers, or their partners, are runners.

Do you like the new window?.

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June in Banff is often wet. I don’t know what the records say but this year feels very wet.

Last night we had a thunder and hail storm that knocked out all power in the town for over three hours from about 5.30 to about 9pm. We closed the store but I do feel sorry for those folk caught out on the trails or who could find nowhere to eat.

All this talk of June rain brings to mind the June Rain series that we carry by internationally renowned artist Thep Thavonsouk. These pieces are original watercolour on rice paper.

Thep immigrated to Canada, from Laos, in the 70′s during the Vietnam War. His art usually reflects his previous life as a Buddist monk and I feel always have an aura of calmness and serenity.

Let me know if you like this.

(Bankok Airlines did a 5 page article on Thep Thavonsouk in the inflight magazine, you can read it by clicking this link)

          

Its been so wet recently that, in the absence of any real scenery due to low cloud, all there has been for our visitors to do is to shop.

However I really thought that window shopping was an exclusively human wet weather pastime. That is until, twice in one afternoon, we had a window shopper at About Canada, Banff in the form of a squirrel.


He had a proper look around, left to look at other stores, then came back to have another look around the Gallery. I believe he had left his wallet in the car as he didn’t buy anything that day.

I was left wondering if it is THE Banff squirrel. Do you recognise this squirrel?.

That night it snowed and today Banff is beautiful again for our guests, and squirrels.

(Having read the following I am pretty sure it was a squirrel not a chipmunk)

The first thing is to recognize that a chipmunk is different from the only squirrel that is similar, Golden-mantled Ground-Squirrel (right). That colorful squirrel is widespread in wooded open country throughout mountainous western North America. Although the Golden-mantled Ground-Squirrel has black-and-white body stripes, as do chipmunks, it lacks any stripes on the face. It is not a chipmunk, but is in a genus (Spermophilus) with many other ground-squirrels.