Multi-media artist Elizabeth Veninga studied art at the Canberwell Art School in London, England in the 1970s and has been drawing, painting and sculpting ever since.

Veninga, who also teaches art, was showcasing her multi-media works at the MERA School house in McDonalds Corners at her opening Vernissage on January 18. The show includes works in a wide range of media and subject matter. Two that stood out immediately for me were a mixed media drawing of the former Doctor's House in Sharbot Lake, now known as the Sharbot Lake Country Inn, and the second, a charcoal drawing on canvas of an old homestead on the Burke Settlement Road. “I'm really interested in history and older settlements and environments and I came across these two buildings when I was visiting that area a while back,” Veninga said. These two works are elegant and straight forward renderings that beautifully capture times gone by.

Veninga likes to paint her buildings and landscapes on site and as a result these works possess a certain “nowness” that comes with making quick aesthetic decisions on the spot. “I love painting on site because you meet people and you learn about the history of the place, which is really interesting,” she said.

Further along one wall hang a series of three rock paintings, two in black and white, and one with added pastel colour, each depicting a single rock whose bulk takes up most of the picture plane. “I love painting rocks. There is such a history and an inherent beauty in them that I love. I like that sometimes you can see stories in them too; these paintings are not just about what you see but also what you feel.” The immense rock forms are filled with intricate details that remind one of other objects, though on completely different scales: one might be a swirling solar system; another, a microscopic peek into a single-celled organism.

Other works that stood out were Veninga's portraits. Commissioned portraits of pets, people and houses are a large part of her output. One work is a self portrait, the artist in serious reflective moment, and a second, a portrait of her deceased husband. Each is drawn minimally but with the confidence that comes with knowing very well the subject matter at hand. Her portraits of her own two cats are charming and are reminiscent of illustrations one might find in older children's books. These are simple, immediate works that suggest the quiet yet active alertness that cats possess.

The one and only sculpture in the show is a large, free standing steel work that Veninga has titled “Rock Face”. Made from pieces of metal of varying lengths that have been welded together and painted a matte black, this work was created from a photo of a rock face that the artist encountered. This work seems to come from a more abstract place and captures in three dimensions the angular lines that rock faces present to us when viewed from a single vantage point.

Veninga says that she is in no way a purist and that is demonstrated in the wide range of media and subject matter represented in her show. “For me making art is all about connecting with the environment. I am always curious and I love the natural world and I love science too and by drawing, painting and sculpting I get a chance to look really closely at things, which gives me a better understanding of them.”

Veninga's show will be on display at MERA until January 31. For show hours contact Ankaret Dean at 613-278-1203.

On November 29, holiday shoppers at the annual Christmas Fair at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners, which draws buyers from near and far, enjoyed a fine array of crafts, fine art and comestibles courtesy of a number of local vendors. Felted, knit, sewn and woven wearables and seasonal decorative items were in abundance, as were fine chocolates, beeswax candles, body products, jewelry and much more.

Hand crafted pottery is always a much appreciated gift at any time of the year and Fallbrook potter Jane Conley could not keep up with the demand for her newly designed cups. Conley has been making both wheel-thrown and hand-built pottery at her home-based studio in Fallbrook for six years under the business name Conley Pots. She has studied with renowned Brooke Valley potter Anne Chambers in Ottawa and at St. Lawrence College in Brockville with Darlene Keefer. Conley said that hand made pottery has always appealed to her much more than the commercially produced dishes that she and many others find cluttering up their kitchen cupboards. “People, especially those who live in the country, seem to like more rustic dishes to use every day and I started making pottery when I began to appreciate the appeal of hand-made pottery.”

Conley creates a wide range of red and white cone six stoneware items including bowls, pitchers, casseroles, serving dishes, plates, platters, tea pots, vases and butter dishes. Much of her work is decorated with single tone celadon type glazes, raspberry, blues and greens. Some of her surfaces are decorated with a white slip application and others are dipped in various glazes that create a multi-coloured surface.

Rustic coloured glazes are a new approach that Conley has been working with and her powder blue and beige cups sold out at this year's show. Conley has also been exploring altering her wheel-thrown forms. Her tall, totemic styled pitchers are a new design that she has been exploring and she uses a serrated rib tool to create their highly textured, lined surfaces.

Like many crafts people, Conley said the process of pottery making is full of surprises, some more welcome than others. She said, “It is always the kiln that has the final say in the end.” For that reason Conley likes the phrase “What you see is what you get”. She prefers to not take special orders of her work since the firing process adds an uncontrolled element into the process. What Conley loves about the process is designing new forms and thinking up new ideas. To make an appointment to visit her home studio in Fallbrook call 613-267-7679.

Michael Neelin is no stranger to McDonalds Corners. Neelin's family has owned a cottage in the area for almost 50 years and his love of both heritage architecture and natural landscape was one of the reasons why in April 2014 he moved from Pontiac, Quebec, where he had lived and worked for over 20 years, to McDonalds Corners. He moved into a new home in McDonalds Corners, which he designed and had built.

With a degree in architectural history and trained as an architectural technologist, Neelin makes his living designing timber-frame homes, and he operates his own business called Riversong Design. While he loves his work and the fact that it has paid the bills for years, he admits that there is also an artist in him. In fact he started drawing and sketching long before he became a designer of homes. “It was a trip I took to France with my parents as a teenager that ignited my love for sketching and drawing historic architecture and the natural world, and it is a fascination that has never left me”, he said at the opening of his show, titled “Fenceline and Shoreline”, at the MERA schoolhouse.

The show is comprised of numerous drawings, mainly done in graphite. Included are meticulous drawings of old, leaning barns and sprawling heritage farms in their natural surroundings. One of the best of these are of the barns at Clontarf, which are long aged but also maintain their unique architectural integrity. Neelin’s drawing technique is often so precise and fine that the textural beauty of the barn board stands front and centre and is matched by the grace with which he composes the subject in the frame.

His works also draw him to urban heritage architecture like the old Almonte Post office, Confederation Square and Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and a beautiful brick building that he depicts in a work titled “Hollywood Parade”, where the front of the building is masterfully and painstakingly represented.

Some of the architectural drawings can also lean towards the cartoonish side, as in “Breen's store in Clontarf” which appears more like a quaint drawing for a children’s book. However, these also have their own special charms.

The natural world is also one of Neelin's muses and he explained that he never tires of the way “beauty occurs so spontaneously in the natural world” - like the two downed trees that sprawl on a river bank or the tall, thick cedar trees that spring from a rocky river bed in another work. It takes a master draftsman to be able to put graphite to paper and bring one’s subject to life and Neelin is a talented artist who puts his heart and soul into every pencil line that he makes.

He was pleased with the close to 50 people who turned out for the opening of the show, which will remain on display at MERA for the month of November. Neelin said that he is grateful to not only to have a place to show his artworks but also to have such a fine source of art education and entertainment available locally at MERA.

Submitted by MERA

Every month a new local artist's work is featured in the main hall at MERA - a community arts organization in McDonalds's Corners in Lanark Highlands. You can catch the end of the October art exhibition at MERA before it comes down on October 31: Paintings & Portraits by local farmer, Rosemary Kralik. MERA receives 20% of all art sales for the exhibitions. Encouraging local artists and musicians is part of MERA's mandate.

The November art exhibit features “Fenceline and Shoreline" - landscape and heritage drawings by Michael Neelin There will be an opening at MERA on Sunday November 2nd from 2 pm - 4 pm

In his realist graphite pencil drawings, Michael seeks to capture and share moments out of time from the Ottawa Valley’s rich natural landscape and built heritage. Before moving to Lanark Highlands with his wife Lyndal earlier this year, Michael was active in the Pontiac Artists’ Association and Pontiac Studio Tour, with solo and group shows in Western Quebec and Ottawa. His artistic exploration of our region’s hidden treasures dovetail perfectly with his academic background in architectural history and his professional life as a designer of custom timber-frame homes.

Check the MERA website at meraachoolhouse.org for the monthly art exhibitions at MERA or contact MERA at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you would like to exhibit your work.

If the first of the three classical music concerts in the MERA Schoolhouse's Blue Jean Classical Sunday Afternoon concert series is any indication of what is to come, I'd have to say, get your tickets now.

On October 19 I caught the stellar second set played by flautist Gertrude Letourneau and guitarist Garry Elliot, who captured and enraptured listeners with their top-notch playing. I did not get a chance to hear Letourneau sing, which was unfortunate since if it was anything like her playing, it must have been a real treat.

That being said what I did see was mesmerizing. The two covered a wide range of musical styles from Piazzolla's Argentinian cafe-style music to Bach, to Bartok's Six Romanian Dances. This duo are powerful and talented players, both virtuosos in their own right, who come together to create music that is so much larger than what you might think possible from two single musicians. Their repertoire demands much from both; for the tangos Elliott has to not only keep up the pace with multiple rapid-fire rushes of staccato notes but also change rhythm and tone at the drop of a hat in the dramatic style that the passion of tango demands - and all without missing a beat.

LeTourneau is a good as it gets on the flute; she demands attention with a rich, strong sound when need be, which is lots of the time, and her melody lines are so long and lustrous that they seem close to impossible. Often her playing is so light and airy one imagines a feather floating upwards to the realm where angels dwell.

You can tell these two have spent hours mastering their techniques for this demanding repertoire and hours together polishing it to the point of perfection. Yet their eye contact is minimal - a quick glance here or there and hardly ever.

They saved some of their finest until the last and their variations on the theme of Carmen brought a tear to my eye. The duo received a well-deserved standing ovation after their final note played. One additional treat was the fact that Elliott was playing one of Oskar Graf's guitars and Graf, who was in attendance, no doubt must have been pleased with what he heard.

The only disappointment was that I did not see any teenagers in the audience. What a missed opportunity since they can attend the concert series free of charge. For those who missed an exquisite afternoon of some of the best classical music around, you can hear the duo and much of the repertoire they played on their CD titled Habernero. If you want to catch them live, the duo will be joined by Guy Edrington on the French horn and the three will performing “The Great Songs of the Great War” at St. Andrew’s United Church, in Metcalfe, Ontario on Sunday Nov. 9, at 2pm and again at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa on Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 1:30pm.

The next classical concert at MERA will take place on Sunday Nov. 9 at 2PM. Cecelia Ignatieff will be performing Dances on keyboard. Ignatieff will bring more than 30 years of professional playing and teaching to her MERA concert, where she will offer a wide-ranging repertoire from Scarlatti to Scott Joplin. After many years as collaborative pianist with other musicians and vocalists throughout Ontario, Cecilia now lives in the Lanark Highlands and is excited about sharing her passion for music with a local audience. Single advance tickets are $22 and MERA members get a discount. Tickets can be purchased on line or at Tickets Please, 39 Foster Street in Perth (at Jo's Clothes) or by calling 613-485-6434. For more information about other events and concerts taking place at MERA, visit meraschoolhouse.org

The MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners will once again be filled with audience-pleasing classical music as the third annual series of Blue Jeans Classical Sunday afternoons begins again. All performances start at 2 p.m.

This series of classical performances is aimed at bringing professional musicians to play in the intimate space of the MERA Schoolhouse. As part of the relaxed atmosphere, the players will be introducing their repertoire, discussing their instruments and answering questions from the audience.

On Sunday, October 19, Gertrude Létourneau and Garry Elliott will be offering an intimate concert of virtuosic and passionate pieces for the flute and guitar. Gertrude and Garry have performed together since 2007, presenting their brand of lyrical music to a wide range of audiences. Gertrude plays the flute and sings, and Garry masterfully plays a Oskar Graf-built classical guitar.

On Sunday, November 9 Cecilia Ignatieff brings more than 30 years of professional playing and teaching to her MERA concert, where she will offer a wide-ranging repertoire from Scarlatti to Scott Joplin. After many years as collaborative pianist with other musicians and vocalists throughout Ontario, Cecilia now lives in the Lanark Highlands and is excited about sharing her passion for music with a local audience.

On Sunday, December 14, MERA presents "Music for Double Reeds and Piano". After wowing the MERA audience at the very first Blue Jeans Classical music event several years ago, Richard Hoenich is returning with his musical friends and teaching colleagues to present a wide array of memorable pieces. This afternoon promises to be a rich musical experience with a trio of very experienced musicians, pianist Michel Szczesniak, oboist Barbara Bolte and bassoonist Richard Hoenich.

Tickets are $22 in advance or $55 for a three-concert series, and are available from Tickets Please at 39 Foster St. In Perth (Jo’s Clothes), by phone at 613-485-6434 or online at www.ticketsplease.ca. Tickets can be reserved at Tickets Please and picked-up at the door. Teenagers are free.

Photo:

by Marilyn Barnett

In this day and age of plastic and metal baskets most children have no idea that a basket can be made by hand using natural materials. Baskets are a very good craft to teach children as the only tools they need are their hands. The basketry project is being organized by MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners and spearheaded by Ankaret Dean. Funding is provided by The Basketry Network, a group in Toronto, now defunct, whose purpose was to encourage and teach basketry throughout Ontario.

Members of MERA are volunteering to go into the local schools in Lanark Highlands, Perth and Tay Valley and teach children in grades 3, 4 and 5 how to make a small basket to take home. Each basket is made using round reed and dyed in bright colours and woven in the traditional manner.

MERA hopes to visit all the local schools. Local organizations who would be interested in basket making may contact MERA at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if your group would like to learn how to make a basket. Visit www.meraschoolhouse.org for more information about MERA's ongoing community arts programming.

If you're a lover of all types of Celtic music, a concert on Sunday August 24, 2pm at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners is the place to be. Performing will be the Celtic Rathskallions, an Ottawa-based duo who have entertained and impressed Celtic music lovers across Ontario and around the world during their more than 1,200 performances.

Wendy Moore is the founder, manager and one of the lead performers of The Celtic Rathskallions, which she created in 1998. Before that, she performed as oboist and English horn player with the Kingston Symphony for 10 years and with numerous chamber music groups. During the concert, she will play oboe, English horn, tin whistle, Celtic harp, bodhran, shuttle bagpipes, and sing and stepdance.

The other half of the duo is Arthur McGregor, the owner and founder of the Ottawa Folklore Centre, an experienced, versatile performer who has played on stage since he was 12 years old. Besides being a Rathskallion, he leads community singing, writes songs about topical issues, and arranges unusual versions of national anthems. A master of many instruments, Arthur will perform on guitar, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, bodhran, and djembe, as well as supplying percussion and singing.

Opening for the Rathskallions will be Japhy Sullivan, accompanied by his brother Noah and sister Margaret. They are members of the multi-talented Sullivan/Dorner family, which features a range of accomplished singers, songwriters and musicians.

This concert is presented in association with MASC, (Multicultural Arts for Schools and Communities), which has been offering educational arts events for 25 years in the Ottawa area.

Tickets are $20 and are available on-line at Ticketsplease.ca or by telephone 613-485-6434, and can be picked up at the concert. Children under 16 are free. For more information, please visit meraschoolhouse.org.

The farmers’ market that takes place every Saturday during the summer in McDonalds Corners is well worth the trip. The market started up in 2007 and takes place on the grounds surrounding the MERA Schoolhouse, which offers visitors a peaceful and quaint country setting where they can lounge under two huge, shady poplar trees and enjoy everything that the market has to offer. Over 20 regular vendors fill the old fashioned steel-roofed log stalls and many also set up their own covered outdoor booths. Goodies for sale include a wide variety of fresh grown market veggies, herbs, garlic, and also prepared salads and salad dressings plus plants and fresh cut flowers, all made available from local farmers. There is organic meat, home made breads, cookies, cakes and other goodies plus maple syrup, home made preserves and other comestibles. Also beautifully displayed are a wide variety of local hand made crafts that include stone and glass jewelry, wooden crafts and other functional objects for the home and kitchen, and other creative and imaginative gift items including wizards, Santas and gnomes. Lovers of the fabric arts will enjoy the wide array of yarns and other hand made woolen and knit items including beautiful felted slippers, and unique and very delicate crocheted cloth jewelry.

I would encourage visitors to skip breakfast and arrive hungry since they can sit down and enjoy a wide array of healthy and filling snacks. The two J.Ps who man the on-site outdoor brick pizza oven are happy to prepare made-to-order pizzas starting at 11am. The pizzas come in two sizes and are carefully assembled, baked and served up piping hot from the oven.

Or perhaps a home made souvlaki or tandoori chicken courtesy of Silvia and Chris is more to your fancy. The Steady Way trailer offers up fresh and steaming hot fair trade coffee and teas that go well with their famous sticky buns, Queen Elizabeth cakes, exceptional cookies and their wide selection of non-GMO fresh-baked breads. If cheesecake or pies are your thing try Sally Andrews' incredible pies, her regular or gluten-free cheesecakes or her ready to eat gluten-free strawberry shortcakes.

The MERA school house is also open for visitors to wander around and enjoy the art and craft displays within, free of charge. Indoor washroom facilities are also accessible to market goers. Adding to the charm of the market are live musical performances by a number of different musicians every week, who perform from 11am until 1pm.

The market runs every Saturday from 9am to 1pm at the MERA school house in McDonalds Corners. Visit meraschoolhouse.org

Singer/songwriter and spoken word artist Evalyn Parry is no stranger to the MERA school house. In 2011 she performed there at a sold-out engagement in the Girls With Glasses trio. Last Sunday, January 26 it was all Evalyn in a solo performance that sparked off the winter segment of Sunday Schoolhouse Concert Series at MERA .

Parry definitely lived up to her reputation as a lively, intelligent, witty and multi-talented performer in a show that demonstrated her strengths both as singer/song writer and spoken word artist. Accompanying herself alternately on acoustic and electric guitar, shruti box, loop pedals and a water bottle, she opened the first set with a rapid-fire spoken word piece, “For the Non-Conformers”, which was her hats-off piece to all those who dare to be different and who stand up and fight for what is right and against what is wrong in this world. She named them all in back-to-back rollicking verses, in one of which she gave a nod to, “everyone who dares and everyone who speaks....for the freaks and the punks and misfits and the nerds …..for all who know they will never marry... for the outlaws and the in-laws and everything with wings...for everyone who when given the choice, always chooses 'Other'”.

Parry performed a number of tunes from SPIN, her celebrated one-woman show, part poetry, part music, part politics, which centers around and celebrates the bicycle, its invention, its history, and Annie Londonderry, the first woman to ride one around the world in 1894. In the SPIN piece, “She Rides”, Parry combined rapid-fire spoken verses punctuated by the soaring sung chorus, “She gets on her bicycle, she gets on her bicycle, she rides...” She also performed her famed “Bottle This”, her irreverent, clever jibe and musical critique of the bottled water industry, a song that she said she almost did not record. While shaking a lone water bottle as percussion accompaniment she sang about the madness and unsustainable practice and total sham of buying into the 1 billion dollar bottled water industry that is owned by corporate giants. In the song Parry states, “We are swallowing the idea that good water isn't free and that of course one must pay for water of quality.”

Parry's second set was a great deal looser than her first and she bravely decided to venture into new territory, and into a new project and a piece titled “To Live in the Age of Melting- Part 1”. The piece was inspired by Stan Rogers' iconic tune “The Northwest Passage” and the traditional folk song called “Lady Franklin's Lament”, which was written either for or by the widow of Sir John Franklin, the famed Arctic explorer. “I'm playing with Rogers' definition of folk music and the notion of the tradition that the music gets reinterpreted as it passes from musician to musician", Parry explained. The piece opened with a section of the Rogers' tune that quickly moved to spoken word. In the song Parry explored the idea of the human body's vagus nerve, the longest in the body and how it can represent our wandering nature in the world.

Later in the set she ventured into more unknown territory with multiple musical layers that she created with voice, guitar, looper and with the help of the crowd, to whom she taught a repeating chorus. She sang and spoke, creating an aural impression of the Canadian north, adding descriptions that she collected from the crowd prior to improvising the piece.

Parry is a brave and captivating performer who not only treated her audience to her well-known pearls of tried and true performance pieces but also offered up a chance to see and understand how she goes about creating newer work in less explored places.

Upcoming in the Sunday Schoolhouse Concert Series will be performances by Terry Tufts and Kathryn Briggs on February 23, and The Boxcar Boys on March 30.