Coming January 2009 - Snowbound

Tay River Gallery will present Snowbound, a gallery group exhibition of paintings during the months of January and February 2009 from January 17th - February 28th.
"Snowbound" slows the pace in this small town Ontario gallery, in step with the realities of country life during a typical Canadian winter.
An opportunity to contemplate paintings of snowy scenes, some far from snowy scenes and other yet undiscovered paintings - snowbound until further notice.

The winter months provide an opportune time for inward reflection. With the current snowbound theme in mind, we decided to query the gallery artists about how the Canadian winter climate impacts their creative life.

Coming January mid-month, we will share the "Snowbound Thoughts" of these accomplished artists with their personal views on the Canadian painter's creative life in winter. Available to peruse at the gallery during the show and on the Gallery Blog, "Art Matters at Tay River Gallery" will be these entertaining as well as stimulating ideas about the painting life in winter and a sneak peak at some new works in progress or recently completed. We will have you captive snowbound and spellbound!

New Allison Robichaud Paintings Arrive for the Holidays

Allison Robichaud & his wife Margot arrived on Saturday bearing gifts for a delighted gallery owner - wonderful new paintings - after spending hours shoveling snow in the cold at their home in Prescott, before they could leave to travel to Perth. Both were bundled appropriately for the occasion as it was definitely a bone chilling day. That's what I call dedication. All fooling aside, Allison is an amazingly dedicated painter, creating new work daily at the get go. The first photo is of a subdued Allison with his sweetheart Margot and the second captures Allison & Margot hamming it up. Some of his latest work can be seen below.










The top three paintings are small format paintings for the Holiday Smalls show...( 6 x 8s and 5 x 7s)...I missed posting photos for another two small paintings that are here at the gallery.Click on each photo to enlarge. The last painting ,a larger format is titled "Simplicity at its Best", and is the latest Robichaud masterpiece. Click on each photo to enlarge.

Call for Fashion & Jewelry Designers

Tay River Gallery in Perth is accepting submissions from local fashion designers and jewelry designers for showcasing in 2009. We aim to celebrate Fashion Arts Canadian style in 2009. And we won't be quiet about it!
Submissions will be accepted from Ontario and Quebec until January 31, 2009. Submit by email to lbrown@tayrivergallery.com images of recent work and biography as well as link to personal website. Submission by mail also acceptable to Tay River Gallery , 28 Wilson St. W. Perth On K7H 2M9.

Tay River Gallery will showcase a selection of original designs in clothing, jewelry and accessories in 2009.

Tay River Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery in Perth Ontario, located forty minutes west of Kanata, and an hour north of Kingston.

From Shirley Mancino's Travel Notes, Dec 16, 2008

Shirley Mancino is an accomplished professional artist represented by Tay River Gallery in Perth. As an experienced budget traveller, life in Asia is often the inspiration for her work. Mancino travels to paint and paints to travel. Entertaining excerpts from her latest travel notes in India this month follow:
Greetings from Mandrem, Goa!

Finally arrived after a 23 hour train ride.Train was not too clean when we boarded and toilet smelled already even though this was its starting point. We both had bottom bunks so great views out the windows but the foam padding had broken down so we had a very hard bed for the night.We had the compartment to ourselves for the day so were able to stretch out and rest. Our compartment filled up with 7 men in Bangalore at 9:30 at night so subsequently, we also had a cacophony of snorers It was quite cold in the night and I wore my jacket and toque and covered myself with a sarong and my hammock....
Pillow talk
However, the train bed was not as hard as the bed in our next guesthouse which was a lovely looking king size bed with what Michael described as white sheets painted on a wooden board. We know that Indians and other Asians regularly sleep on the floor so a raised hard platform is no problem for them. This place normally charges $40 a night and has a swimming pool. We paid $10 USD. We has two frogs in our hot water bathroom.I was a bit startled!
Shocking News
Next morning I grabbed the electrical plug in (power bar) to make some tea and got a 220 volt shock when I discovered that it had no bottom so my hand landed on live wires.I had trouble throwing the damn thing down as it seemed to stick to me. My hand was all red and puffy and now is burned rather deeply in 2 places.
Home Sweet Home
Now we have rented a 2 bedroom house until Jan 05/09, with living room, dining room, kitchen, hot water, about 1500 square feet, much too big for us ($10 USD). There are very few foreign tourists as folks must be scared off by the Mumbai happenings. So if any of you have a hankering to get away and can get here during the Xmas rush, we have the space.
The beach is lovely and deserted. We are eating overlooking the water, mostly international food. We are also making our own breakfasts and some lunches in our kitchen. So it is hard to believe we are actually in India. I have painted another 2 pieces, one on the train and one since arriving here.
Electrical Issues
Michael and I are enjoying playing house in our very spacious place but all is not totally rosy. Our new hot water geyser tripped the electrical system every time we turned it ( we had to use our torch often to get around and then we were without hot water for a few days.The good news: my hand has healed very quickly.

Mandrem is just below Arambol in the far north of Goa for those of you looking to google where we are. It is very quiet and the place is filled with mainly Russian tourists. They apparently come here because it is so quiet and because they feel free to take off their clothes on the beach. We are enjoying the beach, our walks, both restaurant food and the stuff we make in our simple kitchen.Boy do we miss the microwave and other kitchen gizmos.
I am painting almost every day but don't know how to send any images. Email is scarce and expensive and so far there is nowhere to print pics. Don't know where we are headed next.It is still too far away to contemplate.

Gallery News Update

Tay River Gallery is pleased to introduce oil paintings by Debbie Milling this month. Debbie’s interpretation of the Canadian landscape focuses on views of remote Canadian landscapes captured in travel to Canada’s diverse regions. Her preferred mode of travel is by horseback or by boat; as well inspiration comes from her studio which overlooks the Rideau River near Ottawa. Milling expresses the spirit of the outdoor experience with rich vibrant landscapes showing the connectedness between each aspect of the view from the trees, water, earth to the clouds above in a bold palette of colour. Milling has participated in several group and solo shows in Ontario and her works have been gaining recognition and reside in public and private collections across Canada.


Upcoming Ottawa Living Show on Rogers’ Community channel 22 will air an interview with Ottawa artist, Ernie Labelle on December Tuesday 16th at 8 p.m. The segment will be aired again on December 21st and January 4, 2009. In November, a painting by Ernest Labelle was presented at the Perth and District Chamber of Commerce annual dinner to guest speaker Minister Jim Watson by Perth Chamber president, Dorothy Linden.The painting titled Coffee Break in Perth, (pictured in image)depicts the historic Code's Mill building on Wilson St., at location of Coutt's Coffee, one of the businesses housed in the Mill. Works by Ernest Labelle can be viewed at Tay River Gallery in the current holiday show, Merrymaking by the Tay.

Holiday Hours
A quick update on business hours for the upcoming week before Christmas.
The gallery will be open daily 11 - 6 p.m. from Tues. Dec. 15 - Wed. Dec 24th. Note that Wed Dec. 24th the gallery will close early at 3 p.m.

Closed December 25 & 26
Open Saturday December 27.
Closed December 28 - Jan 1
Open Friday Jan 2 and Sat Jan 3rd.

During the month of January the gallery will be open 4 days a wk.
Wednesday, Thursday , Friday and Saturday 11 - 5 p.m

Happy Holidays everyone!
Best wishes for the New Year from Lisa, Dave, Paul & Minako

Michel Pleau- Sculpter la lumière - Sculpting Light

The gallery has a limited number of copies of the new book release, " Michel Pleau - Sculpter la lumière - Sculpting Light", which would make a wonderful affordable gift item for art lovers on your list this holiday season. This is a lovely slim coffee table book about Canadian artist Michel Pleau's work, and his painting process with accompanying high quality images of his landscape paintings. The text by Suzette Emond is so beautifully written it reads like poetry as it shares the artist's spiritual connection and painting journey in nature. Inspired by the Group of Seven painters, especially Tom Thompson, Pleau's inclination remains to paint the beauty of nature and Canadian wilderness scenes in a spontaneous style that easily enthralls the viewer with its magic.

Michel Pleau is an accomplished Canadian painter and the recipient of various awards and distinction, including the Canadian painting Grand Prize in 1989. Since 1974 Michel has participated in over twenty group and solo exhibitions in galleries in North America and Europe. He is a member of the Figurative Arts Institute since 1999 and lives in the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec. Michel Pleau is represented by Tay River Gallery in Perth Ontario.

Michel Pleau
Sculpter la lumière - Sculpting Light
Size: 9 1 / 2 "x 8"
48 pages, papier glacé ,48 pages high quality glossy paper
42 photos de toiles et quelques photos de l'artiste 42 photos of paintings and some photos of the artist
$15 retail ( price in the gallery) $20 shipped.

Snowstorms play havoc

Just a note to out of town customers. In the case of snowstorms, please call the gallery to ensure that we are open before travelling to Perth. Hwy 7 between Carleton Place & Perth can be extremely hazardous during snow storms, as there is very often quite a delay in the road being plowed or salted or sanded on this stretch of the highway. As we do not live in the town of Perth, but in the country and must travel the highway, there may be the rare occasion when we are snowed in or cannot drive in.
Lisa Brown, Gallery owner.

Excerpts from Shirley Mancino's Travel Journal Dec/08

Shirley Mancino is an accomplished professional artist represented by Tay River Gallery in Perth. As an experienced budget traveller, life in Asia is often the inspiration for her work. Mancino travels to paint andpaints to travel. Image pictured to the left is "Sari Elegance", a 30 x 22 original painting in watercolour & acrylic by Shirley Mancino currently available at Tay River Gallery.

Epistle from Mahabilipurim- Nov 29
Just so you all know, we are safe and sound in SE India....nowhere near the fire and bomb blasts in Mumbai. Our flights departed and arrived on time but still we were about 21 hours in airline transit. We arrived in Chennai in the rain. We made a mistake in our arrival time, wasn't the middle of the afternoon but in the middle of the night 12 midnight to be exact. We had our guide book packed away and no hotel pre-booked....so we found a place in the city which cost about $30 US about twice as much as we have ever paid before....pouring rain and windy and two AM before we got settled in. The next morning we were awakened by a knock on our door by a man wanting to shine our shoes. we explained that we only had sandals and he offered to make us shoes....only in India.

Our biggest adventure so far has been finding our way across the sprawling city last Saturday and then onto the bus for Mahabs the next day....didn't get rained on or at least only a sprinkle....This is the monsoon season on this coast but we have also had a typhoon for the last 4 days, winds at 50 miles, power out all over on and off for days (mostly off) and our hotel room roof here in Mahabs is now leaking. We have had some romantic candle light evenings in our room with no TV and we have sat in the dark trying to stay awake so that we could overcome our jet lag. We are now able to stay awake all day which is a relief and the sun has come out. We changed rooms this morning so should be dry and safe tonite. We are missing the comforts and conveniences of home especially the food choices. This is a very poor state and/or village and there are barely no veggies to be had.We are tired of Indian food already and go looking for western alternatives.... absolutely no chocolate or treats. Beer is about $3 Cdn a bottle but til today, it hasn't been hot enuf to think about it.

I have completed 2 1/2 paintings so far so my production levels on that score are about normal. No galleries or other art studios here with the exception of stone carvers...they are everywhere. Will get this off before the power goes down again.

Dec 03- Further notes from Mahabs
We are staying in a small guest house here at the beach. This is an ancient town with temples and cave carving from the 1st to the 6th century...Palava, for any of you who care. we saw most of the sights the last time we were here so this time we have just been hanging out recuperating from the 10 1/2 hour time difference. It has taken us about 10 days which is what they suggest it will take.

The weather is great and we have been swimming twice altho... the water is very rough and dirty from the storms last week...our room is about 12 x 12, tiled floors and bathroom, TV and a balcony with plants and seating areas right outside our door, fan only and cool water shower which is surprisingly easy to get used to when the temp is 29 degrees C. Cost is about $5 USD. Oh and I get fresh flowers affixed to my door every morning!

As mentioned in our last epistle, a cyclone blew thru here and put the final touches on a sea wall which had been damaged about a month ago....12 feet high, 12 feet wide and about 200 feet long....the sea is very unforgiving. Now the rubble blocks the beach in front of a luxury hotel. The beaches are strewn with plastic bags and other flotsam making it an unpleasant walk.

But the streets are not paved or are paved only in places and are cracked and broken, making walking treacherous. Sand is everywhere and garbage...the dumps seem to be on every street corner. There is tremendous poverty here, most people wear no shoes and are dressed in only longy (short little sarongs). as mentioned before, food consists mainly of rice and bread (parotta or chapattis) and dal and not much else.
We are escaping to Goa on Friday, a 24 hour train ride which will cost about $20 USD for both of us.