Saturday, January 15, 2011

Special Note From Ireland to the Irish Rug Hooking Group

This blog is a special note sent to the Hooking Our Heritage rug hooking group who traveled over to Ireland in September 2010 with the festival of the Sea. The Five Island Art Gallery would like to send our deepest thanks to all the fine and wonderful people we met in Ireland. We are very excited for their trip to Newfoundland in September 2011. Lifelong friends were made and we are all very grateful for such a fantastic experience.

Great to see the rug hookers and the gallery going from strength to strength! Your wonderful group of rug hookers provided the mainstay and the backbone of the visiting Newfoundland and Labrador delegation to the Ireland Newfoundland Festival in Ireland's South East last September and you have left behind a host of friends and admirers across at least 4 counties. I was so pleased to see that all the enormous research, creative design and skillful craft that all your members put into this wonderful group project received such a positive and appreciative response from the Irish people in the several towns, counties and cities where your exhibition was on display. I know that we on the Irish organizing side probably worked you too hard, with a permanent exhibit in New Ross that had to be ''womanned'' every single day of the festival, whatever else was happening across such an extensive region, with day-long exhibits in such other towns as Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary and Borris, Co. Carlow  and with nimble responses to other unexpected opportunities/demands , such as from the schools in Carrick. But you never flinched and, when one also takes in your musical commentaries and performances, the group truly rose to every occasion.
        
So it was great that there was such a big turnout for your very special evening in New Ross. There you had many people who would have picked up along the way ,during their lives to date, some inkling of the closeness of the cultural, heritage and plain human links between the Avalon Peninsula, where your forbears settled, and South East Ireland ,whence they travelled across the ocean. But it was wonderful to see how your group's rugs, accompanying book and performances brought the reality home to them - in such a pleasant and enjoyable way - quite HOW close the connections are and how extensive is the scope of the shared frame of reference in looking at life .
        
Your visit has given fresh heart to all of us in Ireland planning for and promoting Festival 2011 in Newfoundland . We look forward to meeting up on 'The Rock' next September.    

Wally Kirwan,
Member and former Vice-Chair, Ireland Newfoundland Partnership Advisory Committee and Board Member, Ireland Newfoundland Connections.




Video from the Hooking Our Hertiage group on their visit to Ireland.
Produced by Bill Coultas from Springwater Productions.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Congratulations to Terri Leonard

The Five Island Art Gallery would like to congratulate Terri Leonard for winning an award. One of her paintings has been chosen by the Passe au Grille Women's Club, in Florida, that will be part of their booklet which advertises home tours.  Beginning in the month of March, the Passe au Grill Women’s Club will use Terri’s painting for the booklet cover, on tee shirts and posters.  Also Terri will have an exhibition at their tea party which is part of the home tours the Women’s Club offers. 


Painting chosen for award.

Terri Leonard was born in St.  John’s Newfoundland.  She specializes in watercolours and her subject matter includes landscapes, seascapes, street scenes, outport communities, and tropical scapes as she now lives in Florida during the winter. While there she studies at the Beach Art Center, and has completed numerous workshops with a wide array of talented artists.  A recent workshop with Robert Burrage that focused on acrylic painting opened up a new area for Terri, one that she is enjoying immensely and taking on with ease.  She began drawing and painting in 1988 and found it to be a  relaxing retreat from her intense work as a guidance counselor. Since her retirement in 1995 Terri devotes full time to painting on sight. She has exhibited in several group shows in St.  John’s and Florida, and has sold extensively throughout Canada and the United States to businesses, governments and individuals.

Get to know a little about Terri Leonard with a video interview. Produced by Bill Coultas of Springwater Productions and taken in the location of Tors Cove next to the Five Island Art Gallery.





Sunday, January 2, 2011

2011 is here.

The New Year

There they stood atop the highest mound
Clear sky, flickering lights,
Anticipation in the air.

    10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1... 

            HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And the tango began.
Kaleidoscopes of color peppering the sky.
Painted popcorn bursting forth from every corner.
Dancing o're the rooftops,
Awakening the night.

Announcing the dawn of a new era,
Where peace, justice and equality abounds. 

...and we welcome in this Happy New Year.
...with blessings to one and all.

Jan 1, 2011

Poem inspired by the view of fireworks throughout the
city neighbourhoods from Shea Heights.

Rug designed and hooked by Frances Ennis

Keep updated with our weekly blog post and facebook page about
the new and exciting things going on at the gallery in 2011.