The 22nd annual installment of the Roberta Struthers Craft and Bake sale attracted hundreds of shoppers to the Golden Links Hall in Harrowsmith on November 14. The event, which is sponsored by the local Odd Fellows and Rebekahs, is named in memory of Roberta Struthers, a long time Rebekkah who initiated the sale as a fundraiser for the local Golden Links hall. Struthers passed away in 2006 and the event has been carried on ever since. The sale included loads of home made baked goods and a wide range of gift and hand crafted items from 26 vendors, with a portion of the proceeds helping to pay the costs to keep the community hall up and running. A raffle was held for a number of items donated by vendors, individuals and businesses in and around the local community. New to the sale this year were Elaine Peterson and Walter Busse, owners of Bee Happy Honey of Gananoque, who had a “sweet” display of their products up for grabs. The two run over 200 hives and have been making honey for decades. They just recently started selling their products locally at various markets. The annual event included a lunch, and shoppers who attended no doubt made a sizable dent in their gift giving lists for the holiday season.

On Sat. November 28 MERA is the place to be for shoppers looking for unique holiday gifts created by a host of local artisans.
The annual juried show will take place at MERA from 10am - 4pm. The fair is the ideal place to shop locally and support local artists and artisans as well as supporting Community Arts at MERA in McDonalds Corners in your community.
This popular, juried show features vendors of original one-of-a-kind creations that you won’t find anywhere else: hand weaving by the MERA weavers and Heather Sherratt, fibre arts items, organic Chocolate by Ludwig, Strawberry Cottage beeswax
candles and natural soaps, salves, jewelry, felted creations, jams and jellies, gift bag raffle, home baking, a café, hand painted Christmas cards and much more.

Two historic legacy projects for gift giving at MERA Kay Rogers editor, author and member of the 200th Anniversary working group for the Tay Valley Township, is also affiliated with the joint working group of the four municipalities that make up the Perth Military Settlement. She will be selling copies of two historic legacy projects that are helping to celebrate Lanark County's upcoming 200 year anniversary in 2016. In partnership with MERA, Kay will be selling copies of the 2016 Perth Military Settlement calendar, which is  comprised of hand coloured vintage postcards (above) that date back to the late 19th century. The calendar also includes a picture of the historic quilt created by the Lanark County Quilter's Guild, which was put together by “the Needle Pushers” at MERA.

Rogers is also selling copies of the book titled "At Home In Tay Valley", an in depth book that celebrates the people, places and
historic events of the township with over 60 local contributors. The book includes a section titled "Arduous Work" about the history of weaving in the area, which was put together by local weavers Ellen Good and Heather Sherratt. These items cost $10 and $30 respectively and will be for sale at MERA (except during the Christmas Fair) with a portion of the proceeds being donated to MERA.

For over 30 years now, singers from the choirs of Trinity United Church in Verona, St. Paul's United in Harrowsmith and St. Paul's Anglican Church in Sydenham, along with singers from the surrounding local communities have been joining together in song to celebrate the Christmas season.

The free concert, which will take place at Trinity United Church in Verona on Friday, December 4 at 7:30pm, was originally conceived as a gift to the community and it continues to be one of the musical highlights of Christmas in the local communities. This year's concert will no doubt be another enjoyable, moving and festive celebration and it is Trinity United's way of kicking off the holiday season.

The 28-member choir has been practicing steadily for the past seven weeks under the direction of Annabelle Twiddy and will be performing a diverse and eclectic repertoire.

Not wanting to give too much away, the choir will sing “For Unto Us a Child is Born”, a selection from Handel's Messiah, as well as a fabulous rendition of “Silent Night”. The audience will have a chance to join in song with these talented singers in the carol known as “Star of the East” and will be invited to sing a number of other holiday favorites with the choir.

A group of young singers will also take to the stage for a virtual school bus ride to Bethlehem and will sing “How Far is it to Bethlehem.”

As always, the one-hour concert will be followed by a further gift of light refreshments when performers and the audience will have a chance to nibble on some treats and visit together. Annabelle Twiddy will be sharing her baton with guest conductors John McDougall, and Brad Barbeau, who will also be playing the organ. Marg Smith will also be accompanying the singers. The concert, always a seasonal highlight, is a great way for music lovers to kick off the 2015 holiday season. The performers hope to see a full sanctuary at Trinity United on Friday and they look forward to having the community join them in song and celebration.

At their meeting on November 16 at the Barrie hall in Cloyne, members of the Cloyne and District Historical Society were treated to a special presentation by local artist Brian Lorimer about his Project Remembrance.

Lorimer grew up in Belleville, Ontario and made regular trips throughout his life to his family cottage located on Massasaganon Lake. He eventually moved to the area in 2002, where he met his wife Margaret. Lorimer was trained in art at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and has had an impressive career. He started out designing exhibits for trade shows between 1984 and1989 before becoming a free lance artist.

It was a famous Toronto restauranteur, Peter Oliver, who gave Lorimer his first break by asking him to paint a huge mural for one of his many renowned restaurants. A series of other mural commissions for various locations in Canada and the United States inspired Lorimer to start his own mural business in 1995, called Lorimer Murals Inc. Since its inception, Lorimer has created hundreds of large scale murals, many of which measure 76 feet in length.

A trip to Asia in 2008 led to a series of works titled “Landscapes of Solitude”, which depict the people and places from that part of the world. In 2009 he painted his “City2Sunrise” series, and used the proceeds to help fund the building of a school at an orphanage in Cambodia. In 2010, a trip to Ethiopia inspired his “Omo Series”, comprised of various portraits of tribal culture from that country.

It was a friend of Lorimer's who first asked him to do a painting of Vimy Ridge, which led to his exploration of Canada's role in World War 1. That first painting inspired him to create 36 large scale works measuring 6 feet in width, and to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the onset of WW1 with a project he titled as “Project Remembrance”.

The paintings were begun in November 2011, and were completed over a period of two and a half years. Painted in oils, Lorimer's palette is unconventional for paintings that depict war. His colours are far from muted and muddy - they are intense and vibrant, showing his intention to create works that are “explosive in both colour and energy”.

Influenced by Canadian artists like Alex Colville, the Group of Seven, and Charles Pachter, Lorimer's works are powerful and compelling and capture the intense activity and feelings that must come from experiencing war first hand. In an effort to better understand what soldiers living and fighting in the trenches experienced and to capture the feeling of that place and time, Lorimer hired a back hoe to excavate a 40 foot long by six foot trench on his property. “I wanted to get an idea of what it might have been like living and fighting in those conditions and the experience proved both therapeutic and cathartic for me.”

He also traveled to Belgium and France in 2013 to do further research for the project, an experience that he says left him with “the palpable emotions that the unprepared and overwhelmed soldiers must have felt”.

Lorimer says he painted the works from a very Canadian perspective and chose to focus on Canada's key contributions in WW1 like the battles at Vimy Ridge and the Third Battle of Ypres. “I am a proud Canadian and a big advocate for all things Canadian and have long believed that Canada first came onto the world stage in World War 1”.

Project Remembrance was 100% funded by Lorimer himself and he is selling the works to recoup some of the funds he spent. To date 20 of the 36 paintings have been sold. Also included in the project is a book titled “Project Remembrance” with pictures and descriptions of the works and the artist. The proceeds from Project Remembrance will go towards the Support Our Troops Fund, which helps support military families. For more about this impressive collection and/or to purchase a copy of Project Remembrance visit www.projectremembrance.ca

Members of the congregation of St. Paul's United Church in Harrowsmith held their annual Country Crafts sale on November 14, with many of the proceeds going to the Verona Community Association's Christmas For Kids program. The program, with the help of parents and students at Harrowsmith Public School, provides Christmas gift baskets for children and families in need in the local community. The funds raised at the event are also used to support the church's own Christmas hamper program. A total of 22 vendors took part in the sale and the event also included a basket draw for a number of gift baskets and other items donated by individuals and businesses from the local community. Many young participants in the Sunday school program at St. Paul's also took part in the event and were selling a number of holiday gift items to raise funds for Christmas For Kids. Volunteers from the congregation served up a delicious chili lunch to hungry shoppers. Marni Pedersen, who helps to organize the fundraiser, said she was pleased with the turn out for the annual event, which has been taking place for over 15 years.

Fans of famed author, humorist and lecturer, Mark Twain, were treated to an evening of Twain courtesy of David Jacklin, who is the producing director of BarnDoor Productions in Perth. In his one-man show titled “Mark Twain's Patent Scrap Book”, Jacklin reminisced, told stories and jokes and spoke of issues close to his heart. Jacklin's portrayal was of an older, reflective but still very witty Twain. Jacklin manned the stage with grace and confidence, and moved and spoke easily as the famed speaker and wordsmith.

Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 in Missourri, Twain wrote and made public speaking an art form. The show has Twain looking back to his earliest ambitions of becoming a steam boat man (a desire that inspired his novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn), and Jacklin recited some very beautiful and memorable descriptions of some of the places made famous in those novels, like the majestic Mississippi River and the dry hills of California, where Twain tried his hand at mining. The show was perfect for Twain fans, and those less familiar with the man and his work will likely be inspired to read and explore more of this famed author.

Coming up at the Bellrock Community hall is a Christmas concert by the Frontenac Women's Chorus on November 28. Admission is by free will donation and the concert starts at 7:30PM. For more information visit www.bellrockhall.ca

Lovers of, as well as those just curious about classical music, were treated to a spectacular classical concert that opened MERA's Blue Jeans Classical Music series at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners on November 8.

Cellist Emily Kennedy and pianist Keenan Reimer-Watts performed a diverse repertoire. The dynamic duo, both uber-talented graduates of Wilfrid Laurier University, have been playing together for the last three years and both were in prime form.

Reimer-Watts, who is a concert pianist, teacher, composer, improviser, concert curator and chamber musician, opened with a selection of 15 of the 30 Bach short compositions from a work titled “The Inventions”, which were written as pedagogical exercises for the composer's young sons. Like everything Bach, the pieces sound deceptively simple but in reality are examples of his musical genius, profundity and pure musical beauty. Written for the purpose of demonstrating two voice inventions or counterpoint, the Inventions are delightful and Keenan played them with aplomb.

Reimer-Watts then delighted listeners with (Surprise! Surprise!) the Canadian premiere of an original work titled “Wandering Pieces”, a set of four solo and very modern sounding piano works that demonstrate his desire to explore improvisation and jazz piano. The work is new, fresh and covers a vast range of musical ground, with conflicting rhythms and themes that are sometimes repeated. Taken together they entertain and delight and show Keenan's dexterity and desire to push the musical envelope. The third movement in particular shows his openness to everyday influences, like one particular piano that inspired the old clock theme in the piece's third movement.

For the second half of the concert, Emily Kennedy and her cello were front and center, first for Debussy's Cello Sonata, which was written near the end of the composer's lifetime, after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The sonata's musicality ranges from awkward to playful to highly exuberant. Kennedy delivered the delightful piece to great effect, and Reimer-Watts, accompanying her on piano, was with her every step of the way.

The two saved their most serious and somber sides for their final piece, Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano. Written by the composer as a way to show off his abilities both as a composer and a player (“one with extremely huge hands”, Reimer-Watts was quick to add) this difficult and deeply dark piece demonstrated how this accomplished young duo are not only technically adept but emotionally astute as well. The piece delves into extremely dark emotions that the composer seems to try to disentangle himself from musically, often succeeding and coming to a brighter, less foreboding realm only to be pulled down once again into the depths of darkness.

Those complex emotions were often reflected in Kennedy’s facial expressions as she played with precision, intensity and subtlety. She somehow knows what the composer felt and Reimer-Watts was equally adept.

Though the two had to face in opposite directions in the hall on account of the upright piano, a gentle leaning here and there of the head was enough to signal each other at certain necessary moments. Coming up next at MERA on Sun. November 29 is a concert by Karen Savoca at 7pm. Tickets at the door are $25. Advance tickets are $22 ($18 for MERA members) and are available from Tickets Please, Perth (Jo's Clothes), on-line at www.ticketsplease.ca or by phone at 613-485-6434. Teenagers are free of charge.

New life has been brought to Mountain Grove by a local artist with a longstanding pride in her town, and a recently discovered passion for painting.

Arlene Uens, a retired employment counsellor who worked in Sharbot Lake for most of her career, has been beautifying her neighbourhood in Mountain Grove for many years, with flower arrangements under the signs entering town, and Christmas decorations in the village. Now she has added another dimension to that endless project.

Inspired by some of the folk paintings Arlene had seen on multiple trips to the East Coast, she started painting large pieces of plywood around her rural property. What started as a fun experiment turned into a series of imaginative murals that she has been installing in eye-catching displays all over town. As well she has recently started to sell some of her works.

Her work, clearly inspired by her natural surroundings, features loons, herons, moose, and deer amongst whimsical swirls of bright paint and repetitive patterns that draw the eye in.

“I'm a thrift junky,” Uens said about her passion for hitting up thrift stores in search of inspiration for her paintings. “I get great ideas from a tea cup or a little dish.”

Part of Uens' approach is to make the paintings big and bold so that they can be seen from a passing car.

Her paint of choice is Tremclad and she says that her neighbours have been dropping off used cans for her to finish up. In the summertime, she paints in her large barn with the doors thrown open but now that the cooler weather is here she's moved into a room in the house so she can keep warm and keep creating.

“Every day I paint,” Uens said about her art practice.

Along with her painting, Uens has been cleaning up the CP stockyard railbed, which runs from near the hockey rink across to Brock Road, and installing bird houses along the pathway. She dreams of one day having a bird sanctuary in Mountain Grove and also turning the pathway into an “outdoor gallery” with art hanging alongside the trail.

“The goal is to have other artists come in and do the same,” she said. “We have so many artists and artistic people (here),” Uens said. “They are everywhere.”

Lovers of, as well as those just curious about classical music, were treated to a spectacular classical concert that opened MERA's Blue Jeans Classical Music series at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners on November 8.

Cellist Emily Kennedy and pianist Keenan Reimer-Watts performed a diverse repertoire. The dynamic duo, both uber-talented graduates of Wilfrid Laurier University, have been playing together for the last three years and both were in prime form.

Reimer-Watts, who is a concert pianist, teacher, composer, improviser, concert curator and chamber musician, opened with a selection of 15 of the 30 Bach short compositions from a work titled “The Inventions”, which were written as pedagogical exercises for the composer's young sons. Like everything Bach, the pieces sound deceptively simple but in reality are examples of his musical genius, profundity and pure musical beauty. Written for the purpose of demonstrating two voice inventions or counterpoint, the Inventions are delightful and Keenan played them with aplomb.

Reimer-Watts then delighted listeners with (Surprise! Surprise!) the Canadian premiere of an original work titled “Wandering Pieces”, a set of four solo and very modern sounding piano works that demonstrate his desire to explore improvisation and jazz piano. The work is new, fresh and covers a vast range of musical ground, with conflicting rhythms and themes that are sometimes repeated. Taken together they entertain and delight and show Keenan's dexterity and desire to push the musical envelope. The third movement in particular shows his openness to everyday influences, like one particular piano that inspired the old clock theme in the piece's third movement.

For the second half of the concert, Emily Kennedy and her cello were front and center, first for Debussy's Cello Sonata, which was written near the end of the composer's lifetime, after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The sonata's musicality ranges from awkward to playful to highly exuberant. Kennedy delivered the delightful piece to great effect, and Reimer-Watts, accompanying her on piano, was with her every step of the way.

The two saved their most serious and somber sides for their final piece, Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano. Written by the composer as a way to show off his abilities both as a composer and a player (“one with extremely huge hands”, Reimer-Watts was quick to add) this difficult and deeply dark piece demonstrated how this accomplished young duo are not only technically adept but emotionally astute as well. The piece delves into extremely dark emotions that the composer seems to try to disentangle himself from musically, often succeeding and coming to a brighter, less foreboding realm only to be pulled down once again into the depths of darkness.

Those complex emotions were often reflected in Kennedy’s facial expressions as she played with precision, intensity and subtlety. She somehow knows what the composer felt and Reimer-Watts was equally adept.

Though the two had to face in opposite directions in the hall on account of the upright piano, a gentle leaning here and there of the head was enough to signal each other at certain necessary moments. Coming up next at MERA on Sun. November 29 is a concert by Karen Savoca at 7pm. Tickets at the door are $25. Advance tickets are $22 ($18 for MERA members) and are available from Tickets Please, Perth (Jo's Clothes), on-line at www.ticketsplease.ca or by phone at 613-485-6434. Teenagers are free of charge.

Trevor McKinven, who hails from North Hatley, Quebec, admits that one of the reasons he has been putting on his one-man show titled “They Came From Away”, for the last four years is because he is “a bit crazy”. “You definitely have to be a wee bit crazy to do this kind of thing because it is a lot of work and it takes a lot of energy. But I keep doing it because people continue to request it and as result, my tours have been getting longer and longer since I started performing the play four years ago.”

The show, which was created by and stars Mckinven, focuses on the events of September 11, 2001 and more specifically, on the crisis created by the closing of US air space following the attacks in New York and Washington.

One of the results of the crisis was that no fewer than 42 planes containing 6500 people from all over the world were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland that day. Newfoundlanders unhesitatingly rose to the occasion and opened their homes to these thousands of unexpected guests, the “Plane People”, displaying outstanding generosity and hospitality.

In the show, McKinven, who said he has a penchant for doing accents, has a field day playing characters from Italy, the southern United States, Brooklyn and more. He opens the show as Johnnie McDermott, an older Newfoundlander who tells of the event and his own unique history and take on the world. He speaks of the huge Gander airport, which was built for WW2 service but which following the war disappeared from the limelight like “meatloaf forgotten in the back of the freezer”. That changed when 911 happened.

With a perfect accent McKinven also plays an Italian from Florence named Giovanni Marino, who pokes fun at the differences between Italian and Newfoundland food while also mentioning Canada's famed music stars.

McKinven then transforms into Sherry, a “Hi Y'all”, southern belle from Georgia who talks her take on the event and later he takes the perspective of a Brooklyn firefighter, Frankie.

There are no sets, but McKinven more than makes up for that in his energy and enthusiasm for each persona he plays, with off-the-cuff one liners and his perfectly executed accents, which he has down spades.

McKinven did not experience the Gander events first hand, but rather had just landed in Scotland when 911 occurred. He said it was not until he returned to Canada two years later after traveling through Europe that he saw an opportunity. “I realized then that if I had been a fly on the wall in Gander, I could really do something with the situation. The fact that so many people from all over the world were gathered in this one place seemed absolutely amazing to me and so full of potential.”

He then set about writing 25 different monologues from the perspectives of various passengers, studying what their different takes might have been on the Newfoundland people, the place and their customs.

A few years later McKinven put on his first two showings of “They Came from Away” at the Piggery Theatre in North Hatley, Quebec to sold out audiences and was asked to extend the show for 10 more days. The rest, as they say, is history.

To date he has played in Sherbrooke and Montreal, Quebec, all over the Maritimes, and at various venues in the United States. After talking to a producer in New York he said he hopes to be heading there for a tour. Asked why the play appeals especially to audiences in smaller towns, McKinven said smaller communities tend to relate easily to the Gander situation. “The fact that thousands of people landed in a strange place, one they had never been to before and found it similar but also different from their own homes is what I think people find so interesting about the play. That and the fact that the Newfoundland people were so hospitable is what really hits people most.”

“They Came from Away” is a light-hearted look at a terrible tragedy, which like some tragedies, also included its own special silver lining, which shone so brightly in Gander, Newfoundland on that day.