Blog

On the drive back home

We pass majestic grain elevators

And lonely dilapidated farm buildings.

We pull over on a grid road to stretch our legs and pick a pretty prairie bouquet.

Trains rumble past through the golden fields.

Upon our arrival, we converse quietly over tea or coffee at the kitchen table.

Pauses are long but the silence is peacefully welcomed.

Stories and memories are always shared over a big meal around the table.

Produce, pickles and preserves are anticipated.

Comfort.

Familiarity.

Nostalgia.

Home.

Artist Biography

Amber Antymniuk was born and raised on an acreage outside Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

Amber holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Regina, where she specialized in Arts Education, with a major in visual arts and a minor in English. She holds a Fine Arts degree from the same university.

She makes her home in Saskatoon, where she taught Kindergarten to Grade 8 Arts Education in the Public School Division for five years before taking parental leave — “a perfect opportunity,” she says, “to utilize some of my skills that had been put on the shelf over the years.”  Amber spends her days raising two boys, writing, painting and distributing her book titled, H is for Home: A Saskatchewan Alphabet.

Amber draws inspiration from her rural upbringing and from Mother Nature.

To view more of Amber’s work or to inquire about commissions, please follow @amberantymniuk on Instagram or visit Blow Creative Arts

Showing June 27 – August 1

Local artist DANIELLE FULAWKA has been painting and selling her acrylic pieces for nearly a decade. Most people can’t imagine the Canadian prairies looking anything like these ethereal floral paintings but all of these pieces are based off of real flower farms in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba.

As a cut flower grower herself she feels a sense comradely with growers in Canada as she seeks to immortalize all of their hard work, it is such an honour and privilege to share their beauty permanently with both flower and lovers outside of their reach.
In her pieces her primary goal is to push to boundaries of depths by using light and shadows to create a “bokeh” effect similar to that in photography. She is always learning and striving to become a better painter as she truly believes that “beauty will save the world.”
@daniellefulawka

ROBYNN OLSON is a Saskatoon based artist and has been creating and selling works of art for seven years.  Six of those years she focused on acrylic landscapes and in the last couple months she has switched over to oil landscapes.  The vibrancy and slow drying time drew Robynn to explore in oil paints and once she started she could not turn back! Using large brush strokes and focusing on simple shapes, a recognizable scene comes to life.  Using the full spectrum of the colour wheel is also important when she explores a landscape.
“Places I want to go and places I have been: that is what I want displayed in my home and I hope others want the same!  I see beauty in the world and desire to paint it – not in the reality we see it, but in a more vibrant, hyperreal, joyful way.”

Robynn’s hope is recreate your memories and dreams using paint on canvas. @robynn.olson

Artist’s Statement

Robynn’s show was going to happen in May, 2020 at Calories.
Since the restaurant will remain closed through the month of May due to Covid-19 health crisis, Robynn’s art will remain at her home. Follow Robynn on Instagram @robynn.olson and see her virtual reception at her home on Friday, May 1st. You can view many of the Road Trip Collection 2020 pieces on Robynn’s website
We invite you to take the Road Trip along with Robynn from her home and dream of the time we can all hit the road again.

‘Cultural Appreciation’, tells 14 stories of strength and beauty through the contemporary Indigenous fashion designs of collaborator, Lauren Good Day, set on the harsh, yet mesmerizing prairie landscapes of Treaty 6 Territory.  Each painting is a visual and impressionistic form of storytelling – sharing the perspectives of others through bold, colourful and organic brush and knife strokes.  Leaving the details up to you, the ‘receiver’.

I invite you to immerse yourself.  Imagine the stories.  Be filled with curiosity and wonder.  Be connected to the land.  Feel the strength and beauty.  And appreciate the culture.

Rachelle Brockman is an experienced and award-winning post-secondary educator, a passionate artist, volunteer, mother, partner and an enthusiastic entrepreneur.  In addition to being a Professional Artist, she the Principal of Eureka Experience (www.eurekaexperience.ca) – guiding ‘Passionate, Productive People’ and the Lead Facilitator of The Betty-Ann Heggie Womentorship Program.

Rachelle, of Métis and Irish descent, learned to appreciate art and nature from her mother and grandmother. Her wild ideas and curiosity are thanks to her adventurous father and the freedom she had growing up north of Prince Albert.  And her deep desire to understand and connect with people and perspectives is a result of her experience working with diverse people.

Rachelle is the illustrator of two children’s books, published by Nelson Publishing, the former owner and lead Art Instructor at Creative Minds Studio.  Her paintings can currently be enjoyed in person at D’Lish Café, UNA Pizza & Wine and Calories Restaurant.
@rbrockmanart
rachellebrockman.com

Collaborating Fashion Designer. Lauren Good Day “Good Day Woman” is a Multi-award winning Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet and Plains Cree artist. She has shown her artwork at the world’s most prestigious Native American juried art shows.  She has been awarded in a diverse range of artwork and was presented with the prestigious Best of Tribal Arts award.

Being a sought after artist and designer her work is in numerous public and private collections internationally. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Indigenous Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM. Lauren lives on the rolling hills of North Dakota, her traditional homelands. Her role as a mother and woman of her tribe guide her to continue on the arts of her people for the generations to come.  For more about Lauren, visit laurengoodday.com or  @laurengoodday.

A note about Cultural Appreciation from designer, Lauren Good Day:

“Let’s talk CULTURAL APPRECIATION vs cultural appropriation.  Often, I get asked if it’s okay for Non-Natives to wear or collect my work.  I always say yes, it’s absolutely appreciated to support authentic Native art & design direct from enrolled tribal artists.  So many major companies appropriate Native imagery & iconography with zero Indigenous partnership and it doesn’t benefit actual Native people or communities.  Wearing Native American Art you’ve purchased from the artist directly is CULTURAL APPRECIATION and is okay!” (Lauren Good Day, Jan. 2020)

These new works come from my roots. In my last years as an art student I painted abstractly, breaking down representational imagery to simple shapes, lines and colour. To begin I create chaos with my materials, draw what I am inspired by and then start to eliminate, keeping the details or stories that I are most intriguing and work as a whole.   As always, I am inspired by the landscape, my flower garden and Saskatoon’s best kept secret Boffin Gardens.   I am pleased to be working abstractly again, it makes me feel at peace, and like this is what I am meant to be doing.  I am excited to see what will come next.

-Cindy-