2015 Resident Artists

As 2015 draws to a close, it's time for us to take a deep breath and look back on an incredible year. Small Pond wouldn't be here without the scores of artists who have invested in themselves through our residency program. The presence of these wonderfully diverse creators has enriched our lives beyond measure. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us in 2015!

Suzanna Lebec's residency was focused on writing. Hard work deserves to be rewarded, and we went on some spectacular outings, including cocktails at the Al Purdy A-Frame with writer-in-residence Kathryn Maclean.

Kath and Suzy at the A-Frame

Pamela Schuller had a productive residency making and painting masks.

Peter Paylor worked on a large sculpture carved from old cedar rails he found around the property, and demonstrated his carving at a Creative Rural Minds gathering.

Ginna Wilkerson joined us from Florida to work on some writing and a host of visual art projects. We went to an art opening at Blizzmax Gallery and she enjoyed getting to know the community through attending many local yoga classes.

Ginna at Blizzmax Gallery

Zach Van Horn came to us from Ohio and successfully completed a whole series of paintings.

Mieke Van Geest visited us for the second time to work on her book of photos.

Photo by Mieke Van Geest, taken during her 2014 residency

Alison Broverman and Katie Swift called Small Pond home while working on The Tale of a Town - Canada. I was thrilled to collaborate with them on this beautiful endeavour. We interviewed 60+ people about their memories of Main Streets in Prince Edward County, culminating in a theatrical presentation and podcast, which you can listen to here.

Katie and Alison in the Wellington Times, photo by Alison Broverman

Liane Décary-Chen came from Montreal to work on some graphic design, and learned how to play Kubb, the Swedish game of champions.

Animators Ruth Taylor and Auke de Vries came to us all the way from Amsterdam, but Small Pond was just one stop on their 'round-the-world residency adventure. 

Auke at Point Petre

Ruth tries her hand at axe-throwing on Jobs' Island

Some of our regular puppetry collaborators stayed with us while working on our latest shadow puppetry play, Unjustly. 

Guy Doucette and Craig Morrison, puppet designers

Andrew Young, head puppeteer and woodsman

Thank you to all these wonderful artists for making this a summer to remember.

If you're interested in joining us for a residency in 2016, we're now accepting applications. Please visit our website for details.

Re:Collections - In Print & On The Stage

This past April I started asking people to tell me their library stories for a project called Re:Collections. “What kind of stories?” people wanted to know. “Any kind,” I would say, “as long as they are personal and true and have something to do with libraries.”

Over the spring and summer the stories trickled in by mail and email. I spent some time in each of Prince Edward County’s six library branches, asking patrons and librarians to take a few minutes to talk to me about the libraries in their lives. I recorded these interviews, and later transcribed them.

Libraries have had a profound impact on my life. As a child they unfolded countless universes before me; this early love of language and books started me on the path towards becoming a writer. As a teenager, libraries were places of refuge where I could lose myself in a book without worrying about fitting in. Conversely, as an adult I have re-discovered the library as a place of community. The library is an institution with ancient roots that plays countless roles in people’s lives, and continues to evolve as we do. They are a wonder. Simply put: I love libraries.

Clearly, I'm not alone. I've taken great pleasure in hearing the diversity of stories people have shared, as well as discovering the similarities between them. We library lovers clutch a common thread.

After seven months of story-gathering and synthesizing, Re:Collections wrapped up this past weekend, with the launch of a zine of the collected stories. My first zine! These are exciting times!

It only took me 35 + years to get from this:

To this:

At the launch, we held a reading of a half-hour verbatim play; 60 voices edited together into a half-hour performance. 

L to R: Joan McBride, Rick Zimmerman, Christine Renaud, Krista Dalby

The audience loved the reading; they laughed all the way through it, and many people told me they also found it quite touching. But there are a *lot* more stories in the zine than in the play, and copies were flying out the door! 

Zine launch and DiscARTed art show opening at Books & Co., Picton

If you would like a copy of the zine, please get in touch with me: krista(at)smallpondarts.ca. There are a limited number of copies available, so first come first served! They are $10 CDN (+ $2 shipping), with half the proceeds going to the County of Prince Edward Public Library.

Dewey Decimal by Niall Eccles

My most heartfelt thanks to the 60+ people who contributed their stories, to the Ontario Arts Council and the County of Prince Edward Public Library & Archives for their support, to Niall Eccles for creating the project’s Dewey Decimal Mascot, and to my co-conspirator Milé for designing the zine. What will be our next project for Silo Press?

See you at the library!

UPDATE (May 16, 2016): There is now an audio recording of the play! Listen to it HERE. it's kind of quiet, so make sure you turn the volume up.

Stickfest 2015

On Saturday we welcomed friends old and new to the annual Festival of the Stick, our much-loved celebration of the humble and mighty stick. This year's featured activity was Kubb, a game we picked up in Sweden a few months ago.

The game involves two teams throwing sticks at each other's "kubbs" - blocks of wood. It looks pretty simplistic but it's quite challenging and extremely fun! Kubb was a big hit with our residents over the summer, so we knew it would be the perfect activity to celebrate Stickfest.

We also had our ever-popular stick-painting activity. We love seeing kids mucking around with paint. Get 'em hooked while they're young, I say!

But the heart of Stickfest is our pop-up Stick Museum. 

Visitors are always delighted to discover that yes, there really are a lot of different sticks in the world, and that we have gone to great (ridiculous?) lengths collecting specimens from around the world and displaying them in informative and creative ways.

We had some fantastick new donations to the museum, like this Anarchistick from Christine Renaud:

A bundle of Artisticks from Rick Zimmerman: 

And this spectacularly bug-carved stick from Joan McBride:

Stickfest is always a great time; maybe next year you'll join us? Our friend Ember will tell you what to do: