EDITOR’S NOTE

This issue of Grand powered by creativity, passion

You don’t have to go too deep in this issue of Grand magazine to realize this is a region of intense passion held by people who are powered by curiosity and creativity.

It is a region of role models. It is a region of living and learning with people who take their life lessons out of old houses, out of the land around us and out of life itself with all of its sweet and surly turns.

This is an issue that explores what life’s journeys hold for all of us. Every person has a story to share and I’m so thankful for the artists who opened their studios and souls with our writers and photographers.

Using oil paints, Amanda Rhodenizer captures incredible tension between people and the land and sometimes between the land past and land future. Her road could not have been easy and you get a sense of that when she talks about how she once felt like an outsider looking in. She tells a must-read vignette about growing up that is helpful and inspiring.

Spend some time with Jan and Jean Narveson inside their Waterloo home and beloved Music Room where some of the world’s best classical musicians drop by to play. Yes, the best in the world and they drop by at a home just up the street. It’s an incredibly rich story with a sombre back story.

There is no such thing as success without struggle, just ask Cathy Lesperance. How do you fall in love? Well, there are many ways, hers just happens to involve shoes – for horses. She is one of the country’s most accomplished farriers and her struggle against gender bias is disheartening, enlightening and empowering all in one.

And let’s not forget about the culture in this area. Chef Taylor Martin is young woman to be celebrated. Martin is a Conestoga College grad who is the first Conestoga student to study in France at the prestigious Institut Paul Bocuse. Culture, love, passion.

We sum it up by Raising Spirits with a creative fall harvest libation from bar manager Ulises Sanchez. It’s a wonderfully intense salute to the fall harvest – bourbon mixed with beets fresh from the garden.

Here’s to the harvest and the artists and creators and people who feel and make us feel at the kitchen table, in the rooms and spaces they design and in the communities they help build.

Jim Poling, editor-in-chief jpoling@grandmagazine.ca