Love Art in Calgary Tour: We Visit Harry Kiyooka and Katie Ohe

To try to adequately write about my experience yesterday, attending the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, will be a challenge. I think that I was engaged at a very personal level to this experience and so these few posts will be informative, but with a smattering of heart felt connection. What the heck! My readers know me and my obsession with issues of identity, memory and sustainability. You will understand.

The ‘getting there’. Wendy Lees has opened up so many opportunities for Calgarians through her offer of Love Art in Calgary tours. I highly recommend them. She is inspiring, connected and driven in this venture and I’ve become more aware and more linked in to my arts community because of these experiences.

We gathered at Wolf Willow Studio, where the air is filled with the rich smells of evergreen. Presently, the studio is home to Michelena Bamford‘s Rocky Mountain Wreaths where, on December 8, my readers are invited to take in a marvelous day of creative wonder. Michelena, a profoundly inspiring mosaic artist provided that sort of comfortable space where we could gather and connect, in preparation for the car pool to our art experience.

Thanks, Bill, for driving. I shared the road with Conrad, Doreen and Suzanne. It’s always fun to connect with new people and it was especially interesting to learn from Doreen that they had hosted Lawrence Hill, near the onset of his writing career. Lawrence had shared a narrative at his One Book/One Calgary launch about a Calgary couple that he treasured deeply for their long friendship and somehow I ended up sandwiched between them on our ride out to KO Arts Centre. God has a way of pulling the pieces of our lives together.

I am ending this first post with some photographs. Upon arrival, we stepped out into a warm bright day, facing a vast expanse of mountains on the horizon…tall stands of trees…stunning architecture and a sense of anticipation. The twenty acres that is dedicated to be the KO Arts Centre was charged with magic. A feature article, as an introduction, can be found in the Calgary Journal here, Giving it All Away. Please scroll down to the video.