

East end farm embraces the arts
Glocca Morra Farms is a familiar sight to anyone driving along Highway 15 near the 401. Initially, people pull in to check out the luscious fruit and vegetable stand on the east side. Along with the produce, there are enchanting fairy gardens and fabulous plant arrangements. A little further in, folks find the greenhouse and discover they can bring their own empty containers in and Glocco Morra Farms will design and assemble customized planters for them. What people may not r


Featured Artist of the Week: Wes Garland
Name: Wes Garland Age: 43 Instrument: piano/organ/keyboards Wes Garland is an ordinary guy by day, musician by night. Though he says he wishes he could just be a musician, Garland works as a software developer in downtown Kingston on a daily basis. On off-work hours, he jumps around from musical project to musical project, such as the Grateful Dead tribute band he's currently working with right now, but also plays regularly for the Limestone Jazz Collective and his main bar b


Featured Artist of the Week: Boris Baker
Name: Boris Baker Age: 23 Instrument: Bass guitar Boris is a neuroscience student at Queen's currently working on his masters while also going big with his band, Kasador. Baker says he took hold of the bass guitar as a senior in elementary school when it was the coolest instrument to play and his dad assured him bass players get all the girls (which he now says wasn't true). He dabbled in a few bands throughout high school before diving in head first with Kasador, which has p


Featured Artist of the Week: Vera Donefer
Name: Vera Donefer Age: 85 Medium: Acrylic Raised by Polish and Russian parents, Vera Donefer was destined to be a secretary or teacher if her father had it his way. But growing up in New York City, Donefer fell in love with art, spending every weekend at a museum. After studying commercial art at a college in Manhattan, Donefer worked as a fashion illustrator until her husband landed a job in Montreal, which led them to Canada. From here, she worked as a fibre artist. Now, D


Featured Artist of the Week: Taura Hanson
Name: Taura Hanson Age: 39 Medium: Brush lettering
Taura Hanson is originally from Manitoba, but moved to Kingston in 2008 , then to Dubai for four years and returned to Kingston in January 2014 due to her love for the community and the city's thriving art scene. Now, she is an active arts community member in Kingston. Though she works her day job as a freelance web designer for Innovate Kingston, Hanson is also on the organizing committee for the Kingston Women's Arts Festi


Featured Artist of the Week: Danielle Folkerts
Name: Danielle Folkerts Age: 25 Medium: Mixed media artist (painting/fibre art) and instructor Danielle Folkerts is originally from Alberta, but when her partner (who's in the military) got posted here, they moved to Kingston, where she soon fell in love with the arts community and landed a job managing/curating The Kingston Collective and its workshops. Folkerts says some of her earliest memories are of her drawing, colouring or sketching as a kid, and after a visit to Europ


Featured Artist of the Week: Joslyn Wilson
Name: Joslyn Wilson Age: 44 Medium: Acrylic paintings. Joslyn Wilson's background is a lot of science-y stuff, especially considering she was working in the medical field before taking a break and discovering her love for acrylic painting. Though it was originally just a hobby to relieve some stress, Wilson soon had a house full of paintings and recently decided – with some encouragement from friends – to start selling her work. She now has a business website and Facebook pag


The tale of a tattoo artist
Jo Peridon knew her life’s passion by the age of 15. That was when she got her first tattoo. That was also when she did her first tattoo: a floral design crawling up her arm. "I had no idea what I was doing and one thing led to another. And over the years I’ve managed to pick up more and more knowledge and be at a point where I’m extremely proficient with my craft,” she said. There’s really no educational institution for people who want to become a tattoo artist in terms of p


Featured Artist of the Week: Amanda Sadler
Name: Amanda Sadler Age: 27 Instrument: Piano, guitar, banjo and sing Amanda Sadler is a country singer/songwriter and philanthropist originally from Barrie Ont., who moved to Kingston to take sociology and English literature at Queen's University. She quickly fell in love with the city and has been living in town for five years (when she's not traveling around for music). Apart from her passion for music, Sadler is an avid foodie and says she loves trying out new restaurants


Featured Artist of the Week: Cathie Hamilton
Name: Cathie Hamilton Age: 67 Medium: Encaustic (plus some painting and copper) Cathie Hamilton is a resident artist at Martello Alley and helps run workshops at the Kingston School of Art. She's a retired elementary school teacher who also took a fine arts course at Queen's University. She said the rest of her
family isn't quite as artistic as she is, but that her parents did take some art classes and her sister paints a little. Nowadays, Hamilton teaches encaustic workshop