CELEBRATE LOCAL THIS CANADA DAY
Though Canada Day this year might look and feel quite different from previous years, there’s no reason we can’t still celebrate and use it as an opportunity to beautify our homes with the works of local designers.
Originally from Edmonton, industrial designer Jordan Tomnuk, of Tomnuk Design, now calls Vancouver home. Tomnuk’s Lune lighting collection was chosen as the 2016 launch pad winner at Wanteddesign (a Nycxdesign event) and his beautiful rolling pins — made from North American maple and walnut — have been featured in the New York Times and Washington Post.
“That was thrilling,” he says. To say Tomnuk has an eye is an understatement, with his lighting receiving international attention.
“We have a few new lights that we were originally going to release at ICFS this year; we’re going to have a floor lamp, and a desktop lamp,” he says.
English illustrator and artist Anja Jane Sheridan has called Vancouver home for more than four years. An avid backcountry skier, hiker and outdoor enthusiast, her love of local British Columbia scenery shows in her beautiful prints of places such as Bowen Island, and tarot-inspired playing cards that detail “spectacular hikes around Southern B.C.”
“People can just pick a card, and that’s what hike they’ll do. Maybe they’ll do a completely different hike to what they’d normally do, like Stanley Park. I’ve heard from people who buy them, they enjoy reading about hikes, and it reminds them of trips they’ve done in the past or trips they want to do,” she says.
Sheridan says she has customers who collect her cards, which she finds touching.
“I’m so passionate about the outdoors and conservation of the old-growth forests. And I feel that when people are in nature, and they’re surrounded by the trees, that’s when they get passionate about preserving them,” she says.
In the U.K., Sheridan was a textile designer in the fashion industry, she says. Her work took her to New York, Italy and London, and moving to Vancouver was very much a lifestyle choice. She and her husband wanted to live by the ocean, to hike, and do the things they loved most.
The designer says she’s done many different things in the course of her career — she’s been a permaculture gardener, set up a coffee shop in a London art gallery, and when she arrived in Vancouver and found little in the way of the textile industry, Sheridan started illustrating postcards of places she loved. Images of neighbourhoods such as Kitsilano, and coffee shops she frequented proved popular, and it grew from there, she says.
“Having a textile background really helped in terms of colour and pattern. The way I create an image is similar. What I think people like about it is they have an emotional response, because it’s joyful.”
For those who traditionally celebrate Canada Day with a backyard party, there’s no reason you can’t do something fun, even if it’s on a smaller scale, says Carla Moreira, trend and design manager for The Home Depot Canada. An easy way to decorate for this is Canadian-themed throw pillows, she says.
“These pillows are super fun tucked on the back of a dining chair or sectional, or even on an outdoor bench, for that added bit of cosy. They look great on their own or layered with a solid pillow on the back. I also love the look of mix and matching different prints for a more individualized feel,” she says.
And nothing says party like a fire pit, says Moreira, with one of Home Depot’s best selling fire pits featuring Canadian iconography.
“The Canadian wildlife icon cutouts along the façade make this piece a fun tribute to Canadian wildlife,” she says.