Local craft stars shine at event
Local craft stars shine at home and gift show in Toronto, Vicky Sanderson writes.
There was a lot of ground to cover at January’s Toronto Gift and Home Market, a five-day buying show with more than a million products from over 600 exhibitors of gift, housewares, fashion, and accessories.
For retailers, the long walk is the cost of doing business in the $10-billion giftware industry; where they stop will determine what Canadians find in home, art, craft and gift stores throughout the year.
Despite the size of the January market, run by the not-for-profit Canadian Gift Association (cangift.org), it was easy to spot how much excellent product came from inside Canada.
The Saskatchewan Craft Council (saskcraftcouncil.org) brought, for example, interesting pottery made by Zacharie Quin, who with wife Adrienne Gradauer runs Smiling Cow Studio (smilingcowstudio.com) in Maple Creek, Sask. The interesting texture and slightly translucent quality of his work is achieved by carving hardened pieces by hand with a straightedged tool. Many pieces have tiny touches in gold.
Works by artists from Nunavik began to appear widely in gift shops in the 1950s, when co-operatives of artisans began to promote and distribute Inuit art. One such co-operative is Nunavik Art (artnunavik.ca), a partner of La Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau-Québec (fcnq.ca). Owned by members in 14 communities on the Hudson and Ungava coasts of Nunavik, the shelves of sculptures, with their striking lines made even more graphic by the smoky tones of stone come in every size, and some have handwritten notes by the maker that tell its story.
Vancouver’s Dogwood Letterpress (Dogwoodletterpress.com) is run by Lisa Currer, whose family has been in the printing business for four generations, and her husband Sean Boag. They create beautiful handmade stationery and cards on a 1912-vintage platen press. Printed one at a time, using a combination of hand-carved linocuts, photopolymer plates, and hand-set metal and wooden type, these cards are both lovely to send or to frame as miniature pieces of graphic art.
Celadon Art (celadonart.com) manufactures made-to-order framed print art in Burlington, Ont., where they can do custom sizes and frames. Most can be produced either on canvas or acrylic. Pieces sell through designers and design showrooms, and in fine furniture retailers and retail showrooms. The range is pretty staggering, but what particularly caught my attention were the Parisienne Pages series — vintage documents overlaid with airy contemporary drawings — and charcoal-toned, abstract landscapes in ink wash by Taylor Y. Kim.
Hides in Hand (hidesinhand.com) makes handbags, tablet holders, coffee sleeves, laptop covers, and slippers — among other things — in Rockwood, Ont., an area well known in the 1950s for quality glovers and tanneries. Their spirit lives on in this company, one of the few remaining leather manufacturers that creates 100 per cent Canadian product.
They use regulated hides collected from local hunters and oversee their own tanning to maintain control of the process. This soft and buttery leather, crafted into well-designed, well-stitched and painstakingly finished product is beautiful, notably in the line that owner Teresa Paul — herself a designer — commissioned to Eric Parnell, a member of the Eagle clan of the Haida Nation and who recently made news for having a hand in the design of Skwachàys Lodge, an Indigenous arts hotel in Vancouver gaining notice for both its good looks and advocacy of Indigenous art.
Quebec-based Maison Lorrain (maisonlorrain.com) showed fun paper placements in quirky designs as part of their extensive table linen collection.
At the Craft Alliance Atlantic Association (craftalliance.ca) display, I met Angela Worsley, who operates All For Knot Rope Weaving in a studio just off Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy. Worsley makes charming and colourful nautical home decor, maritime decorations, and pet products out of marine-grade new rope or reclaimed lobster rope that would otherwise be burned or buried. Other items are executed in Manila hemp, which is fashioned into durable, flexible, and subtly-coloured marine rope (allforknot.ca).
To see more lovely things from the Toronto Gift and Home Market, go to aroundthehouse.ca.