By Christy Chase

Photographer Stephanie Foden is going places.

Her love for photography keeps her moving year-round and her art is getting noticed, thanks in part to the Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

The former Durham Region resident won the Best Emerging Photographer award in 2016 at RMG Exposed, which raises funds for the gallery’s free arts programs. She also won the Community Choice award.

This year, Foden was selected by curator Charlotte Hale to donate a photograph for RMG Exposed: Out of This World. Her work, ‘Northern Sky’, will be part of a live auction of 10 chosen works at the Nov. 25 event.

“I’m so happy because I’ve been a big fan of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery for years,” she said, adding she’s always found the gallery warm and welcoming.

She’s also delighted her photograph is being auctioned alongside one donated by former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. A photograph of Saudi Arabia he took from the International Space Station will be sold in the featured auction.

Foden’s photograph of the Northern Lights was taken in Saskatchewan last summer and is part of her RV Diaries project.

“For the last two summers, I’ve been travelling around Canada in a motorhome,” she explained. “It’s essentially about my life on the road.”

Last year, she drove from Toronto to British Columbia, documenting her journey with her camera. This year, she headed east to Newfoundland.

And she’s done both journeys in her 1987 Chevy Elite RV.

“I’m very surprised that I made it,” she said with a laugh.

She calls herself a digital nomad, splitting her time and her photography between Brazil and Canada. The RV, which can be seen in her donated photograph, is her home base during her time here.

The cold months she spends in Brazil’s northeast coastal state of Bahia, where she stayed for more than two years after touring South America. Works from her time there were featured in her solo exhibition at the RMG this past spring, earned for her win in RMG Exposed in 2016.

Foden says the award last year has definitely helped her and her career.

She’s received other recognition since but the win at the RMG was the “first significant thing” to happen in her career and she’s grateful for it.

“Winning mostly was kind of like a confidence boost. It encouraged me to keep going on the path that I’m on,” she said.

The solo show, part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, also saw her work featured in media outlets across the GTA.

This year, Photo Boite selected Foden as one of its 30 Under 30 women photographers. And her photograph taken for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation won the American Experience category in the Smithsonian Magazine photography competition. Her works can be found in galleries around the world.

The former Durham Region resident didn’t set out to be a photographer. She was studying print and broadcast journalism at college but developed a love for photography after buying a camera and backpacking through Asia one summer before graduation.

“I never pictured myself as a photographer. I never thought I was creative enough,” she said, adding what has happened is “ a lesson that you should just try it.”

She said her time in Brazil was “kind of like my education. That’s where I developed my voice, my vision.

“I shoot in colour. I have an eye for light, and particularly dramatic, beautiful lighting. My stories and photos have a positive angle.”

She’ll head back to Brazil in December and when she returns in the spring, she and her RV will head to the United States.

RMG Exposed: Out of This World takes place at the gallery, 72 Queen St., Oshawa, Nov. 25 from 7 to 10 p.m. There will be a featured auction, live auction of curated works, and a silent auction of works selected from submissions from national and American photographers. There will also be space-themed events. Those in attendance get to vote for the Community Choice award. Tickets are available at the gallery and at www.rmgexposed.net where you can also find more information about the event.

Christy Chase is a long-time resident of Oshawa and a writer. She enjoys exploring her artistic side as a volunteer at the RMG.

By Stephanie Pollard

“I want all my children to have the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.”

-Phyllis Diller

Wind and sputtering rain didn’t stop guests from enjoying May’s First Fridays at RMG, which celebrated Durham’s young people.

From performances by the Durham Girls’ Choir and spoken word artist Jaylen Stark with the O’Neill C.V.I. dance group, to the Durham Youth Council helping guests brush up on their Canadian history, young people got the spotlight to remind everyone that of all the requirements needed to make a contribution, age isn’t one of them. Kyle Fitzgerald, Chairman for the Durham Youth Council, appreciated the gallery for highlighting the young people who get involved in their communities throughout Durham, and noted that progress comes from everyone working together.

 
“I think we ( baby boomers, Gen. X-ers, and millennials) can view each other a lot better, and I think events like this that bring all generations together are really what’s going to benefit our region most, because we can learn a lot from the older generation, and the older generations can learn a lot from us- it goes both ways,” he said. As if to prove Fitzgerald’s point, guests could take a look at what the kids were up to via Friday’s Film Feature ‘Hero,’ presented by Vincent Massey Public School.

 

Upstairs, performers and artists were in their elements as guests were introduced to four new exhibits: Saudade de Bahia (May 06, 2017 – June 11, 2017), ab Next (April 29, 2017 – September 03, 2017), Visitor Information (April 29, 2017 – September 19, 2017), and Abstraction: The Rebel Cause (April 22, 2017 – August 27, 2017), along with music by Emily Rocha, VINCE, and Jack of Hearts (Isabel). Food-wise, Gabriella Budani of Nourished on the Go, Oshawa’s very own vegan (!) restaurant, made an appearance to show her support and relieve Durham vegans of the where-can-I-go-for-lunch stress (16 Simcoe St. South).

 
“Well, there were no vegan options in all of Durham when we opened, so I knew there was lots of vegans around and I had a feeling they would be hungry, so I opened Nourished on the Go,” she said. Menu items include salads, soups, pasta dishes, and dessert – specifically a breakthrough full vegan vanilla cake.

 
Check out next month’s First Fridays on June 2 from 7- 10 p.m., where all things PRIDE take centre stage!

By: Christy Chase

Carin Makuz is a Durham writer with an interest in the detritus we leave behind us. She started The Litter I See Project (litteriseeproject.com) which matches photos of litter she’s found with short written works by more than 100 Canadian authors, all in support of Frontier College’s literacy programs.

“I’m interested in how casually we drop things on the ground and discard things,” she said.

Her exhibit, which moves into the RMG Gallery A this spring, focuses on something you often see abandoned on the curb – couches.

She wonders who owned them, why they were abandoned and what stories these pieces of upholstered furniture could tell.

So she’s taken photographs of the many sofas she’s found and has asked friends and people she meets for their couch memories.

“I was stunned when everybody had one,” she said.

The exhibit, featuring 40 photos, is a memory project, a way to start conversations, she said. The couch memories she’s gathered will be posted, although no names will be used.

Since couches are great places for conversations, Makuz is hoping to start them with her exhibit.

“I’m going to create a seating area in the gallery to encourage people to stop, sit and have conversations,” she said.

They can also write down their own couch memories.

Makuz added the frames used for the photographs come from thrift shops and have, in a sense, been abandoned themselves.

 

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Christy Chase is a long-time resident of Oshawa, a writer, and former reporter and editor with local newspapers. She now enjoys exploring her artistic side at the RMG.

By: Stephanie Pollard

In ancient Rome, stones were marked with distances-usually a full, or part of a mile-and placed along the road, hence the word ‘milestones.’ Today, we know milestones as place markers that hold significance in a person’s or entity’s life, big or small. April’s RMG First Fridays celebrates two ongoing milestones: the 50th anniversary of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and the fourth thesis art exhibition from students in Durham College’s Fine Arts program.

Executive Dean of the college’s Fine Arts program Greg Murphy highlighted the students’ learning and personal journeys, noting that support always makes a difference.

“It’s a partnership really. At the end of the day, you (the students) come out with this work with guidance from the faculty, and the faculty (comes) out with a pride in seeing you go through all the pain, joy, and learning that you go through from when you arrived here (Durham) to where you are now and the kind of work you’re producing, congratulations-really, really great work. I’m so happy to see that you stayed through,” he said to a group of budding artists who smiled shyly at a clapping audience. Professor Sean McQuay, Durham College President Don Lovisa and Mayor John Henry were also present.

Meanwhile, art enthusiasts, music lovers, and local get-together supporters made their way through various rooms upstairs, to either listen to musician Rob Moir, watch performances by the Maxwell Heights Dance Company or sample creations from upcoming businesses.

Norm Reynolds, co-owner of Brew Wizards Board Game Cafe, came to First Fridays to help RMG get a little closer to their next milestone, while encouraging samplers to visit their location (74 Celina St., Oshawa).

“We (work) with a lot of local businesses…we want to give back as much as we expect to receive,” he said. For three dollars, Brew Wizards visitors can access over 300 board games available, and re-fuel on homemade sandwiches, coffees, desserts, and draft beer.  As one of the few (only?) games cafés open to Monopoly masters in Oshawa, it made sense to open a business in Durham.

“We’re all from this part of the world. I grew up in Oshawa, two of the other guys grew up in Oshawa (and) one in Whitby, and we wanted something closer to home-so why not?” Norm said.

The next RMG First Fridays is happening on May 5 from 7 – 10 p.m. See you there!

Jo Yetter: Dripping Faucets Are My Metronome
Art Lab through March 30

Jo Yetter is a Toronto-based artist who explores space, interpersonal relationships, identity and growth through printmaking, book art and installations.

“I like to say I work with space,” they said. “I make books but they are spaces to inhabit.”

Yetter is using their month in the RMG’s Art Lab to explore and to encourage discussion.

“I just want to use this space to experiment. I want to experiment with the narrative quality of objects, because they house people.

“I’m trying to make sense of people being transient in our lives.”

Yetter said they are concentrating on creating, not in making finished art works.

“It’s nice to not be so wrapped up in making something.”

They said when creating finished works, “I don’t let myself be as free as myself. “

They are also seeing themselves as part of the work.

“I really want to have the hand be a part of objects, as a way to insert my own visual poetry in this.”

These creations are installed on shelves in the Art Lab and Yetter hopes to start discussions about these. Gallery visitors are invited to bring in their own objects for discussion.

The works Yetter creates in the Art Lab will likely end up in future finished works, they said.