The Hidden Garden Gallery is once again offering up some incredible artistic treats this summer. Located at 803 Kildare Street in New Denver this intimate gallery will be bringing textiles, painting, photography and more for folks to feast their eyes on. Exhibition openings will be music to visitors’ ears too, with many of the evenings having live music as part of the event.
“We’re proud to present the 2012 line up of outstanding Kootenay artists,” said gallery board chair Martha Nichols.
This year, the season opens with a display of hooked rugs that begins June 25. Visitors are invited to celebrate “The Art of the Handmade Rug” with Heather Fox and Sara Judith, June 25 to 30 with a reception featuring music by Paul Gibbons and friends on Wednesday, June 27, 7 to 9 p.m. Both Heather and Sara have been persuing their love of fiber, color and texture by learning and teaching both traditional hooking and punch hooking.
Hooking, punching and prodding as ways of creating rugs were techniques born of ingenuity and necessity. In the early 1900s, women transformed burlap feed sacks and strips of used clothing into functional mats as well as things of beauty. These crafts have ancient roots in Egypt and Peru, and also a more recent history in the hooked rugs of our Maritime Provinces. Here in B.C., Emily Carr was also known to create hand hooked rugs, some of which still survive today.
The craft is now experiencing a renaissance and is becoming a well-known fibre art medium. These rugs are no longer just for the floor but are gracing our walls as art. Recycled fabrics, hand dyed wool, and exotic yarns, silk and mohair are all worked through backings of linen and sturdy cotton.
After this textile show designed to excite every artistic fibre in visitors, they will surely be drawn back for more.
On July 2 through July 14 Patrizia Menton’s photographic exhibit “Impressions of Cuba” will be showing, with a reception on Monday, July 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. The featured music for the evening will be provided by Dirty Laundry: delicate cycle.
Italian-born photographer Patrizia Menton has been pursuing her passion for the captured image for the last 23 years. Her work in Fine Art Photography includes black & white and colour, which she still enjoys shooting with film. Her photographs have been exhibited in Italy and Canada and her work is also on display at Chiaroscuro Photographic Gallery, her home studio in Hills.
Also in July Tsuneko Kokubo, Boukje Elzinga and Sara Jefferys will bring their works to the walls of the gallery, and in August look for Louise Ducharme, Sara Rainford, Katharine Dickerson, Rabi’a Gonzales, Donna Shaw and Karen Hornby. From encaustic to oils, weaving to watercolors, photography to fantasy the Hidden Garden showcases local and regional talent for the enjoyment of our 3,000-plus visitors annually. The Hidden Garden Gallery is open 10 am to 3 p.m., Monday through Saturday.