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CITY GUIDES: Edmonton
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Artist Tim Okamura
Tim Okamura may be best known for taking
on outsider themes and techniques by merging painting with graffiti to deliver
urban settings and minority subjects. But the Edmonton-born artist has struck
a decidedly popular chord. Mainstream films, including School of Rock, Jersey
Girl and Prime, all feature Okamura’s canvasses, and Ethan Hawke even wrote
the work into his novel, The Hottest State. Which is not to say Okamura’s
resigned to becoming a creator of decorative set pieces. His always political
work has shown in London’s National Portrait Gallery and New York’s
Museum of Modern Art’s PS1 venue. As his canvasses marry painterly rigour
with street-art robustness, so his audience is culled, brow-wise, from high and
low. —Michael Harris |
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780-221-4800, theurbanfarmer.ca,
10926 93 St. |
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Garden
Turn
your talk about earth-friendly agriculture into your own urban oasis with an edible
landscape designed by Ron Berezan, the Urban Farmer. Berezan’s designs are
inspired by everything from the French potager tradition and English-style cottage
gardens to Australian permaculture and tropics-based edible forest gardening.
The focus is on sustainable organic landscaping and bio-intensive methods for
small spaces—beautiful, responsible and delicious. Consultations start at
$100. —Daneda Russ |
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780-758-4940,
29armstrong.com, 10129 104 St. |
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Decor
Business
partners Amedeo Pagliuso and industrial designer Bryan Humphrey have filled 29Armstrong’s
open, 3,000-square-foot space with mid-century modern and unique craftsman pieces.
The store offers a unique selection of designers that includes Canadians Tristan
Zimmermann, the Loyal Loot Collective and Gus as well as sources such as AreaWare
and Charles & Marie, who exclusively produce new works by up-and-coming designers
from across North America.—Amy Fung |
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| 780-417-9521, serenityredesign.com |
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Home
If
you want a fast sale for top dollar in this buyer’s market, hire an interior
decorator and professional home stager like Connie Williamson of Serenity Redesign.
Home staging is about accentuating your home’s best features, explains Williamson,
rather than creating a personal look. So what sells? Turns out Edmonton buyers
want triple-car garages, upgraded storage spaces (like closets with built-in organizers),
walk-in showers and granite countertops, along with perennially popular architectural
features like custom-milled mouldings and luxury items such as soaker tubs.—Daneda
Russ |
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See
White Moose
“An homage
to Canadiana” is how designer Tyler Vreeling, owner of Edmonton’s
Fat Crow Design firm, describes its White
Moose furniture and home accessories label. For a company that has just hit
its first birthday, the five-member creative team (four of them University of
Alberta design grads) has been busy bringing to life the old adage “nature
inspires” in very new ways. See the wilds of Canada take aesthetic form
in pieces like their Autumn rug (bottom left, designed by Joanna Goszczynski),
magnetized coasters (top left) emblazoned with loons, beavers and wolves and a
chair designed by Mark Oswald whose shape was influenced by an old 1960s Canadian-designed
heater. For their Spruce Stand room divider (shown above), Vreeling gave fellow
designer Joel Harding the key phrase “digital Group of Seven” and
a modern-looking, tree-etched green masterpiece is what emerged. How’s that
for quirky Canadian inspiration? —Katie Nanton
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Shop Kohon Design
A custom creation in Kohon
Design’s downtown gallery. Talk about a conversation piece— imagine
telling your friends that the couch they sit on in your living room was crafted
by that renowned designer, you. Kohon Designs works with its clients to custom
design furniture using 3-D animation CAD software. Then owner Sheila Hahn reaches
into her Rolodex to find industrial designers and artists in Alberta and Saskatchewan
to bring these designs to life. For those who want something off the rack, Hahn
also works with young, newer artists in the West to give her gallery a hip,urban
edge. —Jennifer Cockrall-King |
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Available
at Art Beat Gallery 780-459-3679, artbeat.ab.ca, 26 St. Anne St., St. Albert |
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Shop Glass Happens
Jeff Holmwood’s artwork should come
with a warning: you may lose yourself in the visually mesmerizing, eye-popping
swirls of lime green and bright orange on black that adorn his Vortex vases. And
don’t even get us started on the complications of his trippy, mosaic-modified
Electric Kool-Aid series vases. Holmwood combines a steadfast sense of humour
with technical prowess to create his visually arresting designs. His studio, Glass
Happens, is also now home to Edmonton’s burgeoning hot glass scene. His
Electric Kool-Aid vases begin at a hallucinatory $1,000.—Jennifer
Cockrall-King |
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780-488-6464
dwellmodern.ca
10549 124th St.
Edmonton |
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Design Dwell Modern
With the plethora of condos hitting town,
there was bound to be a shift in the furniture-buying requirements in the city.
In keeping with the smaller-space needs of condo dwellers who don’t want
to drive to warehouse-size stores on the outskirts of town just to buy a chair,
the recently opened Dwell modern furnishings boutique carries Euro-mod lines like
Moooi, Kartell, Calligaris and Vitra.Located just west of downtown on 124th Street,
it’s a one-stop shop for design junkies: it shares the two-storey glass-fronted
building with the chic lighting store, LightForm, and the sleek, kitchen-envy-inspiring
Appliance Gallery.—Jennifer Cockrall-King
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Available At:
Audreys Books
10702 Jasper Ave., Edmonton
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Do Architecture
Architectural tourism in Edmonton? You bet.
The Art Gallery of Alberta has released Capital Modern: A Guide to Edmonton Architecture
& Urban Design 1940–1969, a book which makes the case for Edmonton’s
architectural significance. The 159-page guidebook features essays by Trevor Boddy
as well as local architects Shafraaz Kaba, Troy Smith and David Murray, as well
as elegant portraits of some hidden and endangered gems. (Note: two have been
demolished in the past six months.) You’ll never look at the Glenora electrical
substation or Eastglen Composite High School in the same way again.—Jennifer
Cockrall-King |
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780-990-1938
10009 107 St. Edmonton |
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Eat Wildflower Grill
A boutique hotel needs a boutique restaurant,
after all. And Edmonton seems to be in love with the tiny boutique restaurant—think
Culina, Bacon, and Skinny Legs and Cowgirls. Thus when the Matrix opened in late
2007 in downtown Edmonton, all eyes were on the street-level space, waiting for
a stylish restaurant tenant. The Lazia restaurant group, led culinarily by chef
Yoshi Chubachi, answered the call and recently opened Wildflower Grill. In keeping
with the Matrix, the decor is contemporary, with white stone set off against wood
furnishings. The wine list leans locally with a few notable Okanagan reds like
Osoyoos Larose and Desert Hills Meritage, but the menu goes back to what Chubachi
does best: European fine dining with Asian twists and refinements.—Jennifer
Cockrall-King
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0139
112 St. NW, 780-990-0011 |
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Shop Kerstin Roos
Sadly the choices offered
at many local chocolate stops range from milk to basic dark chocolate (and that’s
if you are lucky). That’s why we were so excited to tell you last October
about Edmonton’s Kerstin
Roos, whose inventive creations run the gamut from 72 percent Ecuadorian dark
with cayenne pepper to 49 percent dark milk with Maldon fleur de sel. Roos has
now opened a downtown retail location for Kerstin’s Chocolates to offer
up her award-winning creations. And for those really bitten with the chocolate
bug, the st240ore will offer monthly chocolate tastings to explore such topics
as the subtle differences between various cocoa plantations in the Dominican Republic.—Jennifer
Cockrall-King |
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780-482-2685
nesw.com
10546-115 St. Edmonton
By appointment only
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See Common Sense
Edmonton sculptors Rob Willms, Ryan McCourt and Andrew French are the fertile
minds and welding power behind the North Edmonton Sculpture Workshop, an artists’
collaborative. They’re also the agents provocateurs behind the thought-provoking
“Illuminated Manifesto” art blog, Studiosavant. Their latest project,
in the Oliver neighbourhood of downtown Edmonton, is a bigger shared studio and
freshly opened gallery space, Common Sense. Works by Willms, McCourt and French
will rotate through Common Sense along with other artists’ pieces in this
newest artist-owned and adjudicated gallery.—Jennifer
Cockrall-King |
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| 780-455-8863, 11235 Jasper Ave., poshathome.com, Edmonton |
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Shop Posh at Home
Affordable art abounds at Posh at Home, one of Edmonton’s
newest home decor hotspots. Look for original works by locals Cheryl Paige Bozarth
and Christine Dickenson (her ethereal Suminagashi pieces would lend instant Zen
to any home spa), or get a steal on a funky automotive-themed photo-on-metal piece
by Julie Witten-Land (prices start at $150). For those who prefer their art more
functional, check out the shop’s collection of stackable, sculptural Nuevo
indoor/outdoor furniture (below) or warm up with a ventless ethanol fireplace.
—Daneda Russ |
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| 250-544-8217, 6170 Old West Saanich Rd., Victoria. |
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Shop Winchester
Cellar
Saanich’s Winchester
Cellars views the cocktail hour as the next fortified mountain to conquer.
Armed with Vancouver Island’s first distiller’s license and a Jules
Verne-esque hammered-copper-pot still, Ken Winchester has crafted Victoria Gin,
the first handcrafted gin made in the West. Infused with 10 organic botanicals—including
rose petals, coriander and juniper—it’s a complex and elegant elixir.
The first release of 3,000 bottles has local barkeeps asking just one question:
shaken or stirred?—Shelora Sheldan |
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Stay Painted
Boat Resort
For three decades, those who sought the perfect
blend of Rocky Mountain adventure and creature comforts have been likely to end
up at one of Pat and Connie O’Connor’s properties. From the isolated
beauty of their Emerald Lake Lodge to Buffalo Mountain’s prime spot atop
Banff, the O’Connors had the market cornered among the good food and intrepid
traveller set. Now they have expanded their reach well past the Continental Divide
to bring their formula to British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. Painted
Boat Resort in picturesque Pender Harbour will have all the O’Connor
hallmarks— luxurious but unfussy accommodation, a destination restaurant
and a laid-back vibe. —Neal McLennan |
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Eat Mangkubra
Ranch
Aussie-Albertan food maven Lovoni Walker is busy
these days. In addition to hosting CLT’s Simple, Fresh, Delicious and authoring
a cookbook by the same name, she has found time to open up her foodie home on
the range to the adoring public. Mangkubra
Ranch, her 160-acre property near Leduc and Edmonton’s international
airport, is now open for a first-class food and wine experience. Comfortably lodged
in the ranch’s new red cedar guest cabin, visitors can tour local producers
each morning, then return to the ranch to turn their finds into delicious meals
during afternoon cooking classes. The results are then paired with an all-Canadian
wine list. “It’s just about taking people back to the basics,”
Walker says. “We’re educating people about buying better, eating better,
living better.” —Daneda Russ |
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