New Semi-Regular Series for The Edmonton Journal: Made In Edmonton

Often people get in touch with Sam Cupelli because they want a steel gate.  After they leave this craftsman's studio, called Simply Steel Metal Art Studio, they  have ideas for a whole lot more ways steel might fit in their home. In Cupelli's well-trained and creative hands, the options are endless: back splashes, wall finishes, chairs, table legs, spider webs, back lit bars and wall art...

Sam Cupelli at his art studio. Photo by John Lucas; Edmonton Journal photo credit.

This article is the start of a semi-regular series in the Edmonton Journal Homes Section, intended to excite our collective creative juices. There are so many ways to personalize our homes with art and function (often limited only by our imaginations). The series is also intended to feature the many amazing designer-makers in this city. They are creating beautiful things. With more buyers and collaborators like you and I, I hope they might stay in Edmonton and keep creating.

As William Morris so aptly said: “Let nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Edmonton Journal: Garden Art

Agile Lady by Ritchie Velthuis

For many years, I have passed, and paused at, and smelled this garden just three blocks from my home in the Alberta Avenue community.  While the plants are stunning, its vegetation isn't the main thing what makes me stop. Subtly scattered throughout is a menagerie of clay-fired and cement sculpture.

Homeowners, Ritchie Velthuis and his partner, Stuart Ballah, can often be found sculpting ice at our local winter festivals. In summer time, however, they turn their skillful, design eyes to their yard. Ritchie does mostly figurative art and he gracefully gave me a tour of their yard. See it here: A Yen for Yard Art

If his sculpture excites you, enroll in one of his classes at the City Arts Centre, and make one for yourself.

Avenue Edmonton: Work of Art

When Wendy Turner was 20 years old, she bought her first original pieces of art. Wandering in an Edmonton gallery in the late ’70s, she fell in love with two drawings by Victoria, B.C.’s Myfanwy Pavelic. The nude drawings, studies of Bill Brandt photos, are in black ink against a pale blue and cream backdrop. From afar, the bodies could be landscape form. “I saw them and I thought: ‘I want them,’” says Wendy, co-owner of The Artworks. 

This was one of my favourite homes to visit. So many things to look at, so many stories to tell- the piece could have been twice as long! Click here for the rest of the Article and further photos.