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.

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

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For more locations details, see our newly updated location page

It’s very much a work in progress—don’t think we have Internet yet—but you’ll get a sneak preview of what Kwartzlab will be in 2013.

Hacky New Year!

Ben and I just signed a lease for Kwartzlab’s new home for at least the next couple of years.

We’ve discussing the move for weeks and the board just approved the lease agreement today. We’ll be moving over the next month and a bit, with a grand opening sometime in February 2013.

The new building, 33 Kent Ave. in Kitchener, has up until recently been the home of the Pandora Press publishing company and book shop. It’s got a beautiful store front, a shop in the back with a garage door, concrete floors, ventilation and three phase power and it’s got a room upstairs which will make a fantastic clubhouse and lounge. It’s a bit smaller than we’re used to, but we’re working on ways to get all our stuff in there, along with equipment we’re planning on purchasing in the near future.

Pandora is right on the corner of Charles and Kent, steps away from the Iron Horse Trail and a couple blocks from the Ottawa Street iXpress stop. Thousands of people ride and drive by every day, and this is an amazing opportunity for Kwartzlab to become more visible and accessible to the community.

I can’t think of a better home for Kwartzlab: Phase 2.

We wouldn’t have found this place without the help and support of friends we’ve made in the community. The owner and landlord, Christian, is on the board of MT Space, and we were put in touch through through our mutual friend Gabrielle at Treehaus. We’ve also had fantastic support from the City of Kitchener scouting out potential new locations. Many thanks!

Update: I’ve uploaded some photos from our tour of the place last month.

Stay tuned for more exciting announcements in the coming days!

Participants are supplied with a free pumpkin to carve, along with a Kwartzlab kick – a programmable electronic kit that you can learn to assemble and solder yourself. The kit is setup to flicker lights just like a candle flame!

Along with the main event, we’ll soon be announcing free workshops happening in early November for Hacky Halloween participants to come into Kwartzlab to hack their kits, brainstorm ideas and more!

Hope to see you there!

Hacky Halloween is open to all ages and is free to attend. THEMUSEUM admission rates still apply to other exhibits.

Three chipKIT “Arduino compatible” development kits and shields arrived from Microchip for the ChipKIT Platform Design Contest.

Information about the chipKIT: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1406&dDocName=en559601

Information about the contest: http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en_us/promo/chipKIT/

Tonight’s talk will be by new member, Alex Mackinnon. Alex says:

…It’s about Arduino, Parallax’s sonic pinger and using the two to collect data and draw map of clear paths in front of the sensor head.

If you’ve ever dreamed about sonar-sensing bat robots or just want to see some cool tech and ask an expert about how it works, join us at TON tonight!

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.