Caroline Miller

Caroline gravitated toward jewellery at an early age, when as a young girl growing up in Victoria, BC she would sneak plastic earrings onto her ears and into family portraits. Since those days she has apprenticed as a silversmith in Uruguay, earned a diploma in Jewellery and Small Object Design from the Kootenay School of the Arts and studied in the coppersmithing town of Santa Clara del Cobre in Mexico.  She currently works from her studio in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.

Her work and inspiration are derived from the many oddities of personality and its ongoing progression.  Balanced with these flights of fancy are the permanence of geometries, physics and the techniques of a practised silversmith.  Her choice of materials incorporate the precious with the semi-precious; gold and silver and gemstones are often combined with found objects or plastics.  Caroline’s work is distinct in design, sometimes bold, sometimes subtle.  Classic style is often married with contemporary flair.

Caroline has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants and is committed to strive towards new and fresh approaches to her craft. She has show with the SFM group a number of times so far. We appreciate her quirkiness of design and are inspired by her work ethic and dedication to her studio practice and ever evolving ideas!

Jen Pleadwell | Thousand Flower Textiles

Thousand Flowers Textiles are handmade in Vancouver, BC by designer Jenefer Pleadwell. Combining a variety of techniques including weaving, dyeing, and surface embellishment, Jen creates individual and one-of-a-kind garments in silk and wool. From her studio on the Eastside, she continually works to bring old techniques into a relevant, modern context in the form of unique wear-ables.

Also showing with us for a second year in a row we are anxious to see Jen's new designs and how her works have evolved over the last year!

Clarie Madill | heyday design

Claire Madill graduated from Emily Carr University in 2007 and has been working full-time in her east van studio ever since. Her label, heyday design, mines the past to create for the future. She takes commonplace, utilitarian vintage kitchen wares and transforms them into contemporary porcelain objects and accessories, endorsing a new perspective on their purpose and aesthetic.

Currently she is working on a custom lighting installation of her 'beaver jars' for Canoe (a high end restaurant on the 54th floor of Toronto's TD Tower in the heart of the financial district). The installation includes 92 jars all lined up and glowing!!!  As a result, she is hoping to get a day or two off between now and when they ship in mid-january...  yikes! Her ceramic accessories can be found at the San Francisco MOMA Mueseum Store, which has her pretty excited these days! Go Claire!

SFM happily welcomes Claire back to the show for a second year with her clever and quirky translations of objects we all know and love!

Western Front Society : Craft Cross Promotion!!!

Hey Fans!

If you love craft and independent culture and are looking for some this coming weekend check this show out! 

TOQUE: PRINT & PAPER

2010 Holiday Sale

Friday, December 3  from 6 pm – 9 pm

Saturday, December 4 from 11 am – 5 pm

at the Western Front Luxe Hall, 303 East 8th Ave, Vancouver

Toque, the Western Front’s annual craft sale, gets a new look this year with a focus on books, text and printed material. Please join us on December 3rd and 4rth at this unique holiday sale featuring local designers, crafters,

artists and artist collectives.

Nineteen vendors contribute to Toque this year, with wares ranging from books, zines, cards, handcrafted décor, jewellery, and other special gifts. Long-time Toque favourites return, such as local publisher Simply Read’s

children’s books, Perro Verlag’s wide selection of indie art publications from around the world,  and Contexture Design’s map based mobiles. These Toque regulars appear alongside exciting newcomers  such as the West Coast classic Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver’s independent music collective Safe Amplification Society as well as legendary New York Based contemporary art publisher Printed Matter, and many others. Look for exclusive Western Front publications, as well as  a limited edition commissioned tea towel and colouring poster by Jeff Hamada, Vancouver based artist and creator of the popular blog www.booooooom.com.

Toque opens Friday from 6 – 9 pm, where you can browse and enjoy a drink. On Saturday come by between 11am and 4pm for shopping as well as a special collaboration with Collage Collage, a local children’s arts and crafts shop

and teaching space. Bring your children for fun crafting and colouring! Fine baked goods will be available from Hatty Cakes.

Proceeds from Toque support the Western Front Society, an artist run centre and non-profit registered charity. Held in the warm heritage setting of the Western Front in Vancouver, this sale is a great way to support your artistic community.

Vendors include:

A Farmer's Daughter

Arsenal Pulp Press

Artspeak

Banquet

Collage Collage

Contexture Design

Divesin

Fillip

Hatty Cakes

Penelope Brown

Perro Verlag

Printed Matter, Inc

Safe Amplification Site Society

Simply Read Books

The Beautiful Project

Thistle Town Studio

Tin Can Studio

Wendy Oakman

Audra Neill

Audra is a graduate from the Alberta College of Art and she currently works as a buyer for the set decorating department in film and makes stuffes as well as indulging in her other artistic endeavors when she has time.  The movies she has worked on can be found on the IMDB website. Check it out as it is an impressive list!

Audra has been making a host of stuffed animals for many years.  Her stuffies are always evolving and no two are exactly the same.  All are handmade by Audra and can be found locally at Barefoot Contessa on Main Street and Commercial Street in Vancouver.  After working on the feature film Red Riding Hood, she gained a deeper appreciation for the handmade and has come up with some new art dolls as well as knitted scarves made from hand dyed wool.

Another good friend of the SFM show we are thrilled to see Audra back at Heritage Hall again this year. It's amazing to think that she has time to be creative with a film industry job but her new art dolls sound totally intriguing and we can't wait to see them!

Mary Anne Tateishi

Squid Propulsion by Mary Anne Tateishi

Mary Anne Tateishi is a Vancouver-based painter who paints on wood panel, using acrylic paints, tissue, art papers, and resin.  Her painting process uses layering, transparency and vivid colour to explore ideas of time and memory.  Her work is in private and public collections across Canada, as well as in the U.S.A., Europe, and Japan. She has been interviewed on the CBC radio, City-TV and Fairchild Television, and her work has appeared in local newspapers and arts magazines.

"Usually my paintings are pretty big, like three feet by four feet, but just for SFM, I'm doing some very small work as well, which I think looks adorable.  Once I bought a tiny painting in P.E.I, and the fellow told me it was artwork I could take everywhere.  I love that crazy idea of portable artwork. Imagine taking art with you in your car or on your bike or to work, the possibilities are endless!" 

"My paintings are process-driven, I enjoy painting layer upon layer, working with transparent materials and revealing the whole history of the painting. I also experiment with colour, since bright colour energizes the art work and pulls the viewer into the painting. If I had my way, our whole world would be a lot more colourful, but I'll start with the artwork."

Mary Anne's work should be a colorful addition to our thoughtfully curated show. As she stated earlier she is doing some work particularly for the SFM show this year, which everyone should be excited about! Its a gre
at thing that the Shiny Fuzzy Muddy show not only exhibits outstanding work, but it also inspires all of us to make new and often better work! You can read more about Mary Anne's work, thoughts and process on her blog.

Erin Dolman

Returning to the SFM show is crowd favorite, jeweller Erin Dolman. She was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, Canada, but eventually she heard the call of the wild, pulled up her city roots and now resides in a beautiful cabin in the woods of Roberts Creek, B.C. on the Sunshine Coast. Erin’s work is designed and created in her home based studio under the watchful eye of her Pug, Burl. When not working in the studio Erin is an avid gardener and amateur naturalist, and she also has a weak spot for hotrods and vintage tattoo designs. These diverse interests show as strong influences in her jewellery designs. Skulls and feathers, birds and hotrod flames all come to be incorporated into her work. Over the past 15 years Erin has exhibited in numerous exhibitions both in Canada and internationally. She has also been the recipient of a number of grants and awards including a Niche Award in 2002, an inaugural BC Creative Achievement Award in 2005 and first place in the Brooches Category in Lapidary Journal's Jewellery Arts Awards in 2006.

We always look forward to Erin's unique works and marvel at the way she is able to translate her keen sense of observation of details into her jewellery designs. They all have a story to tell!

jill allan | studio-oodio

Jill Allan lives on Vancouver Island, Canada.  In 1999 she graduated with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design earning a BFA with a major in Glass.   Her work is included in the collections of the Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning N.Y., and the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary.  Jill has received several awards including the British Columbia Creative Achievement Award (2007).  In June 2010 she accepted a scholarship to attend a course in Neon making at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood Washington.  Her work is quiet, based in the craft tradition of vessel making, but not exclusively functional.  She is influenced by Scandinavian designs, particularly those of Finland’s iittala and is interested in designing with light both for public sculpture and also for the domestic sphere.

At first understated and modest, Jill's subtle brilliance with form and color becomes apparent if you can be still long enough to contemplate it. She offers a variety of works at the SFM shows - functional art glass, sculpture and jewellery. A long time friend and colleague of the SFM collective - we are happy to have her back for another year!