Charlotte began her journey into art in the 1970’s creating pen and ink drawings with watercolour inspired by Aubrey Beardsley. In 2003, She attended a tile painting class which provided a whole new outlet for her creativity. Learning to manipulate the paint on a hard surface was challenging initially, but soon proved to provide the variety of expression necessary to keep going with it. She has always be drawn to bold colour contrasts and natural images. Charlotte especially enjoys painting on irregular shaped  tiles and sometimes on glass tile as well. Recently, she is experimenting with combining the paint with coloured ink and watercolour on other surfaces such as paper and wood. She is also doing Collage. Branching out into these other mediums has been exciting, drenched in possibility. To quote a dear friend, Bernie Rohde, Art is a Verb.

Gift. 2013. Fabric, thread, basting glue.

“I often find the middle a lot more interesting than the end.”

Heather Morton is a local artist and designer whose current exhibition at kwartzlab highlights the process of her work. While there are a few “finished” works on display, the installation celebrates the journey of the making process. Beauty and inspiration can be found in a few scrap of materials, thoughtfully pieced together.

“I’ve always loved colour so I began to use fabric the way one might use paint; I liken my over-sized fabric stash to paint; each fabric is a “paint colour” so I have trouble throwing anything out. Most of my finished pieces are practical items (bags, costumes, quilts), so most of the work I still have are the experiments in between.”

We welcome you to join Heather next Tuesday, March 12th at kwartzlab where she will do a short artist talk about her work, starting around 8pm. Heather’s work will be on display in the lab until the end of the month.

Michael Hornyak is a master programmer who has been coding for over 25 years, creating graphics, 3D animation, 3D modeling, user interfaces, websites, sound engineering, music composition, multimedia, and pioneering an evolved virtual reality system that he calls Hyper Interactive Reality, or “HiR” for short.

HiR is a new paradigm in human-computer interaction, it will provide alternative ways to do work and have fun. It is 2D, 3D, 4D and beyond. Control of a computer is possible via motions of the body, voice control, sensors or traditional input devices. HiR is a graphical 3D environment that transforms your computer into an advanced “virtual reality” work-play-place in which your imagination can go wild. Complete control of your media in an outside-the-box kind of way.

Check out a video of Michael’s work in progress here: http://hyperinteractivereality.com/videos/

Michael will be demonstrating his HiR system at our grand re-opening party on Saturday, February 16th during our open house which runs 11am-5pm. And will also be giving a short talk at 1:45pm about his work and his plans for his residency with us, which will conclude at the end of April.

Application information available here:

Artist in Residence Call

Monthly Featured Artist Call

ADDED WORKSHOP BONUS: make your own reusable heat transfer patterns using a Silhouette SD machine (its like a Cricut, but way better!). Choose from an existing library of designs, create your own with the Studio software, or bring an existing .dxf file (all objects need to be ungrouped before saving as .dxf)!

Silhouette SD draws the kwartzlab logo on paper with a heat transferable ink pen

When I ordered my Silhouette SD last June, I also added some fun attachments I knew would come in handy. The pen holder and sketch pens were part of that order.  The pen holder works great, but is limited to ballpoint Bic sized pens and skinny markers. After seeing what was available on the market for holding larger markers, I thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to hack my own version. The flow on my Silhouette SD sketch pens don’t work consistently, so I didn’t have any hesitations in sacrificing one or two. It didn’t take much to transform this sketch pen into a marker holder- a band saw, a drill press, an exacto knife (to clear away plastic shavings) 5 minute epoxy and a small nut and bolt set (to tighten the hold on the maker). 10 minutes later and voila! This guy will hold markers as thick as a regular sized Sharpie.

What you will learn at the workshop:

• how to choose and prep your fabric for stitching
• how to use a heat transfer
• how to prep and condition your floss
• basic stitches (split stitch, back stitch, stem stich, satin stich…more stiches will be taught on request!)
• how to tie off and finish your threads

What you will come away with:

• your own 4″ high quality plastic embroidery hoop
• stitching samplers
• reusable heat transfer patterns- designed by you!!
• needle and floss
• extra material to keep practising with
• confidence in your stitching skills!
• inspiration for future projects!

Workshop materials fee: $10, payable at the door.

Workshop is limited to 10 people! Visit http://learntoembroider.eventbrite.com/ to sign up for a spot!

If you need to cancel your reservation please do so ASAP so that others can join in.

When Gus Gissing brought up the idea for an Artist in Residence program I was totally gung-ho! What a super oppourtunity to use the lab, and set aside some time for just making work. I find myself easily distracted because I get so excited about a lot of different projects…I guess you could say I have Makers A.D.D, but who around here doesn’t? Being able to move away from home for two months has been great, but has taken me a couple of weeks to settle in here in KW. I tend to be one of those artists who thrive on last minute pressure and the looming deadline, so I am trying to make the most of my time left here.

Here’s a sneak peek at some things I’ve been doing at the lab.   

I’ll be here until the end of May, and will be hosting an artist’s talk as well as a public workshop, so stay tuned for more information on that! You can check out more of my creations on my website, agnesmakes.com and follow me @agawaffle on Twitter for timely updates!