Avenue Edmonton: Style Q & A with Tyler Olafson

One of my favourite Avenue Edmonton covers.

Tyler Olafson is classic Alberta: bringing together Cows and Prada for a photo shoot that I really wish I'd been to. When I interviewed Tyler, it took me a half-minute to figure out that the guy sliding into the booth across from me (at Dadeo's) was there for an interview. On Style.  It wasn't that he didn't look nice enough, but his mustache was bushy and long.  And Avenue rarely seems to 'do' mustaches.

The 'stash cleaned up pretty good.  This is a Q & A with a guy a lot like the cowboys of old (not the new settled ones, but the Go West Young Man kind). He's an electrician and biker and rancher... he also wears Hugo Boss.

BEdition: U of A Education Faculty Alumnus

Kieran Block and I met at Transcend Coffee House in Edmonton for this profile. When he walked into the cafe, I'd never have guessed his journey of hospitalization to recovery. Only a year after the former Western Hockey Leaguer set his sights on an Education degree at the University of Alberta, a cliff jump went terribly wrong. He was told he may never play hockey again. He proved the docs wrong thanks to his determination and a different kind of game. Read his full profile here.

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.

Couples in Business Together: Making it Work in Avenue Edmonton

The idea of starting a business with my husband has always held an allure. Lululemon and EventBrite were started and continue to be run by couples. So are successful Edmonton businesses the Duchess Bake Shop and Beacon Hill Properties.

When I imagine our life in business together, I see soft focus images of flexible schedules, days full of shared adventure, and a common purpose that draws us closer. 

Illustration by Dennis Orb; printed Feb. 2014 in Avenue Edmonton

My parents worked together for most of my childhood, and- for the most part- I loved that our whole family was incorporated into their work. It was only as I grew older that I became aware of the strain the business put on my parent’s relationship. The romance of the positives became more nuanced in my teens when my parents sought a totally different work- life balance.  Mom found a 9-5 job. Dad started a new company and many of the particulars of his business remained bound between the four walls of his office.

They both seemed to exhale with relief. Business together had been good, but it had been hard. 

Just as no one business is the same, so every couple in business has a unique story. I set out to speak to three couples that have adapted their relationships and businesses to suit their lives. Sometimes the business strengthened the relationship. Other times something- either the business or the relationship- had to “give”. In every case, these couples created something that was only possible because they were in it together.

Read the Avenue Edmonton article, Making it Work, here.

Avenue Edmonton: Edmonton Theatre Launching Careers

For this article on Edmonton's theatre scene for Avenue Edmonton, I had the privilege to interview  Edmonton-based comedic actor and writer, Mark Meer.  With an internationally recognized voice (he is Commander Shepard in BioWare's Mass Effect), Meer's made a career of comedy: from the CBC's Irrelevant Show to Super Channel's Tiny Plastic Men. 

Meer says, “There’s a notable spirit of cooperation and collaboration in the Edmonton arts community.”  

And I had an incredible night seeing this spirit in beautiful, hilarious symmetry at Rapid Fire Theatre’s improv show,” Chimprov. The show moved from funny to tragic to crass and back to funny. As the actors sweated under bright lights and audience expectation, I couldn’t help but expect that these actors, many at the beginning of their careers, would go far.

Avenue Edmonton: Keeping Current with the Opera

Like so many of its traditional plots, opera faces an epic battle to remain relevant in the YouTube age. Perhaps the most of any art form, opera must overcome the stigma that its spectacle and grandeur are only meant for a privileged elite. “Every opera company has this challenge — reassuring people that they may come in gowns or sweats. We want people to come because they love opera,” says Jelena Bojic, Director of Community Relations with Edmonton Opera.

In this article for Avenue Edmonton, I write that opera in this city is becoming more accessible and more flexible.

I had the opportunity to meet Jelena at Edmonton Opera's digs in the Winspear Centre. In fact, I was invited to come through the "Performers Entrance" and I felt a jolt of celebrity fever. Sadly, I must report that no celebrities were seen in the making of this article. 

Todd Babiak Profile: U of A Alumni Newsletter E-trail

This profile "The Making of a Storyteller" was based on a conversation over a fantastic lunch at Highlevel Diner with writer and Story Engine founder, Todd Babiak.  I'd read his book, The Garneau Block, when it was first published in serialized form in The Edmonton Journal. In preparation for our interview, I read it all in one shot over the weekend.

There were so many things that resonated in that book (printed a decade ago), with the life and times of Edmonton today. Story Engine is facilitating a unique 'branding' process for the city, and Todd is right in the middle of helping form the narrative that he hopes Edmontonians will tell and re-tell to their visiting relatives and on their travels in far away nations.  Coincidentally, it is a narrative that  regularly pops up in The Garneau Block: Edmonton is a good place to make things. And, Edmontonians are exceptional "makers". While our conversation wandered like a jack rabbit trail in Kinnard Ravine, we kept coming back to this idea about what makes us who we are: as writers, as parents, as neighbours and as Edmontonians.

As I walked to my van through the muck of the spring slush (of course, I decided to wear my lovely yet impossibly slippery Fluvog heels) I fiddled with the recording app on my phone. Todd's interview  was there. It registered 0:00 minutes of recording. "F^#*ing f#&$..."

Thankfully, Todd is a compelling storyteller and our talk stayed with me long enough to write this piece.

(PS. I was a little disappointed he did not wear the purple suit to our lunch.)

Alberta Venture: From the Farmer's Market to Supermarket- It's a Giant Leap

See Alberta Venture's April 2013 Issue for my piece titled: Secret Sauce.

Here's an excerpt:

While there may be an increase in consumer demand for local products, it still remains to be seen whether Alberta food processors can scale up to fully capitalize on it.

There are some notable success stories of Alberta food processers scaling up from the extremely local farmers’ market setting to retail shelves. CattleBoyZ BBQ Sauce, with its signature beer-style, latch-topped bottle, had its first retail sales in a small butcher shop in Calgary’s Eau Claire Market.
Now it’s sold in stores across Canada. Initially made and bottled in Joe Ternes’s kitchen, it was his family’s time-tested recipe. In 1994, Karen Hope was the Eau Claire Market manager, and she loved his sauce. Hope, a marketing specialist, and Ternes went on to form CattleBoyZ. Together they established the brand and found a manufacturer, and after a year of perseverance (and a bit of luck), the sauce was selling as a seasonal product in western Costco locations.

But the move from the farmers’ market to larger retailers’ shelves rarely happens so quickly. Another successful Alberta food processor, Kinnikinnick Foods, grew more organically, thanks mostly to the powers of the Internet. In the 1990s Kinnikinnick’s gluten-free baking products could be bought at Edmonton’s Old Strathcona Market, and at the time it was one of the few such products available. Jerry Bigam, the company’s current CEO, was a big fan and regular customer, and he decided to buy the company with the hope of expanding its operations. But after struggling to get shelf space at major retailers, he turned to online sales in order to grow the business. “We were the first company to supply perishable food on the Internet,” Bigam says. “For $10, we could deliver product anywhere in North America overnight.”

The online business helped them grow their sales by 60 to 70 per cent annually, and eventually major food distributors started calling them. They now supply product to 65 warehouses and 10,000 stores across North America. But for many local, small-scale processors interested in scaling up, there are significant and often systemic challenges. Ted Johnston, the president and CEO of the Alberta Food Processors Association, has some sobering advice for anyone looking to make the leap. “First,” he says, “they need to buy a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”

Avenue Edmonton: Wooed by the Antique Auction

I'm  a furniture-phile and deal hunter who will willingly spend summer Saturdays hunting through stuffy second hand shops. That said, I'd never been to an antique auction until last fall when I took my virgin trip to Ward's Auctions for Avenue Edmonton (I had the mis-fortune of mentioning 'virginal trip' to the auctioneer, who responded, "I'll be gentle." Then I turned the unprofessional colour of rhubarb.)

"Tripping to Auction" may be the start of a life-long love affair. The deals are great, but the adrenaline rush and energy of the crowd is something else. Pick up the May edition of Avenue Edmonton, or link to: http://avenueedmonton.com/articles/tripping-to-auction.

If you go, please let me know if it captures your imagination too.

My girlfriend, Tina Faiz, dragged this desk to Edmonton from Seattle. The bookcase is from Strathcona Antique Mall, and chair I bought from a film director I met on kijiji.

The couch was the source of major marital tension: it was a five-piece sectional that I brought home without consultation during my "nesting phase" ( pregnant with my third kid). It filled our tiny living room: "but it has a turning martini bar in the corner," was my plea for keeping the massive monument to sixties largess. We negotiated a compromise: three sections. This arrangement has seemed to satisfy everyone, though it's not exceptional for 'sprawling'.

This table was from Stan's Pawn Shop. Quebec maple, the top was sanded by me and varnished by Mat. The chairs cost me $60 a pop through Kijiji.

This piece languished in the Strathcona Antique Market for two years when they finally dropped the price by $500. I saw it and loved it... probably would have paid the previous price too.