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contemporary Canadian folk art

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Suite 2, The Coal Shed,
402 William Street, Wiarton, Ontario

roguegoat@hotmail.ca

By Appointment Only.

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It’s @mapleandruby at the studio today! Krista on her influences...”My kids are easily the main influence of my work. As a new mom, I quickly learned the importance of clothing that is easy to take on and off of a wiggly baby or flailing toddler, that is durable enough to withstand daily play and exploration, and that is comfortable enough for them to run, climb, and play. My girls also love to help me pick out fabric, and remind me that kids like fun clothes - they want to wear dresses with rabbits and ice cream cones, not miniature adult clothes.” #wiarton

I have only ever bought one matching outfit with a child and that was this summer, from this Sunday’s pop up guest, @mapleandruby . Krista has an incredible eye for fabric “inspired by nature and ...imaginative play”, (campers! beasties!) uses sustainable fabrics wherever possible & her “grow with me” designs ensure longer wearability, maximizing use. AND SHE MAKES ADULT SIZES! 😍 The sweatshirts Krista made for Taryn and I (although pictured on Thomas as a.) Taryn is away & b.) Thomas doesn’t mind sweaters in 30 degree weather) are buttery soft, fit exactly right & are incredibly well constructed. I saw something of Krista’s posted on @thegeorgianartisanshop (I think?!) & discovered that she is lovely & local (Elsinore is about half an hour away)...and almost bought our crazy house too!

This little movement. Sweater weather approaches.

Bed time snacks.

The bones of the land. Figuring out what lies beneath before life decorates and distracts is a good parallel in both Jen’s process & story; “In 2017, I had to close my successful Bath and Body business when I developed a serious allergy. I literally "took to the trail" to heal my body, and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I began hiking the Bruce Trail, and quickly fell in love with the majesty of the Niagara Escarpment, and its surrounding hills and valleys. I developed a fascination with the rivers and streams that flowed from the top to the bottom of the escarpment, and the ways that water found its way down and eventually to our lakes and bays. Standing at the bottom of one of these valleys near my home, with the water rushing beneath my feet, I was inspired to try and capture these magnificent land forms in a creative and tangible way. “ Visit Jen tomorrow! #brucegreysimcoe #brucetrail

As if it’s August! This month we will be having a different local & loved artisan as a guest in our studio each Sunday. I’ll be sharing how I know them, their work & thoughts & their path through Bruce/Grey/Simcoe to the studio each week. First up this weekend (it’s also the annual Village Fair!) is @wandering.jenn who makes incredible scrollsaw cut illustrations of lakes, coastlines & topographical elevations of your favourite places. We met Jen as part of the Ontario art carnie circuit, but she happens to live in one of my favourite villages, dated one of our friends way back, and has similar views on tending beasties, living with dirt, snuggling boys & following your path, literally & figuratively. Jen was the maker of our favourite soap, but had to leave the incredible business she created because of allergies to the essential oils. She reinvented herself (one of the most admirable traits in a human being, in my opinion), hooked up with one of Josh’s extra scrollsaw’s and now is wayfinding by placemaking. It’s a special fortune to love a particular lake, shoreline, creek or river. There is a section of Lake Couchiching, the river bend at Fireman’s Park in Clarksburg, the Coldwater river behind my dads old store, Maclean Lake,Peasemarsh & Woodland beaches on Georgian Bay that I belong in, no matter if I never visited them again. And slowly, I knit our little Lake Charles into my knowing. What places of water do you hold in your heart? #brucegreysimcoe #wiarton

Anatidaephobia. Described as an irrational fear that somewhere, a duck or goose is watching you. Not so very irrational from the hammock.

Did you know that neither the Illiad/Odyssey nor The Bible, arguably the most influential texts in (white/Western) literary history, contain words for “blue”? Beneath the science of why and how we see colour is actually a “when”, with blue becoming a relatively modern invention. There’s no definitive research that explains why (neurobiology, psychology, evolution all play a hand) but the facet that has always captivated me is the link between language and perception. Until we have a label, a word, a symbol for something, we have a hard time perceiving it and once we do...we entrench our awareness of its difference and find more depth in its description. There is reality & then there is the way we draw down the sky with words and storytelling, influencing each other, always. If the lack of blue as a descriptor arose in part because our ancestors didn’t need to organize differences in the sky or sea in the same way they needed to for the more abundant & potentially harmful greens, the emergency of reds, the time telling of black, than the music of blue words are the purest poetry of appreciation, rather than survival. *This is a terrible photo for reflecting the true colours of this commission, that blends the mountains & cerulean sky where & when the client was married with a love of water. Another version of a drawing forth blues. The second shot is my favourite movement of the piece, the beautiful bleeds always get lost when taking a photo of the whole.

I am so happy with this piece. I really wrestle with bright blue skies...I find it hard to convey the immensity of them, the immediacy without losing emotion. Nature’s colours rendered in paint can tend to the garish. I gravitate so much more to moody, storm tossed air & minor note colour songs...but feel like this solidly communicates the vast presence of a sunny, summer day.

Josh has been working at *ahem* MY studio lately, partly because he copes better with working through interruptions than I do on the weekends...mostly because it has air conditioning. We don’t often work there at the same time, but today we were child free & went to work together, just like in the beginning when his saw was about eight feet from my sewing machine on our back porch “studio”. There are a few reasons why I like watching him work 😜 but the choreography of the cutting is near the top of the list. The longer the piece, the more he dances with it, the more dramatic the movements & obvious the effort...this piece was short enough that the physicality of it was almost extinguished into complete fluidity. He had just waxed his tabletop, this Maple commission was skating the surface, lightly guided by his fingertips, looking almost effortless.

About
Welcome
Art
Commissions
Where to Find Us
Care Instructions
Rogue Thoughts…

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