Fleming College

Fly Freeman

Fly Freeman trained as a sculptor in Scotland, where she started her career as a stone carver, carving everything from gargoyles to gravestones and large-scale public commissions in granite. A mid-career move to Canada led to a radical shift in her sculptural practice: carving has been joined by construction as a sculptural method, and wood and other media are now worked alongside the stone. www.flyfreeman.com

Suzi Dwor

Suzi Dwor has a Master's in Art Education and has studied in the US, Paris, and Mexico. An accomplished artist and teacher, she taught Fibre Design at Buffalo State University and is currently working in a program called "Learning Through the Arts" in the Niagara public schools. Her students describe her as extremely creative, intuitive, knowledgeable, and energetic. Suzi makes paper of incredible colour and quality that is used for collage and three-dimensional works of art. She trained in paper-making and fibre design at Kent State, Ohio; Cleveland Institute of Art, Fleming College, and Buffalo State University. Suzi also runs workshops for Wellspring Cancer Centre and Niagara Mental Health, as well as private retreats. Her achievements are many and include juried exhibits and workshops at the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo; Canada Koffler Gallery, Toronto; Rodman Hall, St. Catharines, Jordan Art Gallery; 100 American Craftsmen, NY; as well as across the US and southern Ontario. www.suzidwor.com

Paulus Tjiang

Paulus Tjiang graduated from Ontario College of Art in 1988 and continued his studies both at Pilchuk Glass School and as a resident at the Harbourfront Craft Studio until 1989. Utilizing primarily Venetian techniques with remarkable skill, he brings intense colour, precise detail, and an elegant disposition to his work. Paulus owns and operates Frantic Farms Clay and Glass gallery in Warkworth, ON. www.franticfarms.com.

John Shaw Rimmington

John Shaw Rimmington spent many years specializing in restoring historic stone and brick buildings and eventually extended his focus to using stone in landscaping and building traditional dry stone walls. His expertise has developed from masonry practice and comprehensive research into traditional stonework in Britain, where he has worked with professionals associated with the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain. He is the president of Dry Stone Walling Across Canada, (www.dswa.ca), an organization that offers instructional workshops for homeowners and landscape students on every aspect of dry stone construction. In 2004 he and members of the DSWA built Springdale Bridge, a permanent 6 foot arched stone bridge in downtown Port Hope and in 2005 he collaborated with international dry stone artist Dan Snow to build a permanent stone ruin on the same site. In 2006 he initiated a unique project based on a book by Farley Mowat, where dry stone wallers from all over the world collaborated to build a permanent stone structure in the shape of a pre-Viking dwelling in Canada. He also designed and built the 12 foot high dry stone `Cheese Wedge' at the Niagara Botanical Gardens. In 2012 he designed, organized and oversaw the building of the first double arched dry stone bridge in Canada at a private estate near Montreal, QC. http://thinking-stoneman.blogspot.ca/"

John Anderson

John Anderson is an enthusiastic studio and plein air painter, working in oils and acrylics. His excitement about the language and process of painting, accompanied with an element of creative joy is infectious. As a full-time artist and instructor, John is committed to assisting, mentoring and instructing here in Canada, in Provence, and in Tuscany. As a young boy, his first major influences were the paintings of Andrew Wyeth and later meeting A Y Jackson, he was inspired to absorb the landscape tradition of Tom Thomson and members of The Group of Seven. Many more artists have become the influence from which he has drawn the building blocks of his craft. The focus of much of John's work is the light story, as he describes it. His approach is a study in how the character of light movement creates the elements of composition in a pathway of light as it touches surfaces, creating shapes in value and colour from which to build an engaging surface in paint. John is represented by The Ethel Curry Gallery in Haliburton, Double Doors Gallery in Barrie, The Art Bank Collective in Clarksburg, as well as many guest appearances in other galleries. www.johndvidanderson.ca Instagram: @jdapainter

Ken Hussey

Ken Hussey, Ward World Champion in the Contemporary Antique Decoy category, has been carving duck decoys since 1982. Armed with a Mechanical Engineering diploma and further studies in graphic design, he enjoyed a varied career that culminated in many years as a graphic design instructor. He began carving decoys when, as an avid hunter, he noticed how much better wooden decoys performed than plastic ones. His efforts started with working decoys, progressed to decorative, and evolved into what would become the contemporary antique category of decoys. Ken has firmly established a reputation for excellence and is a sought-after instructor.

Rene Petitjean

Instructor for:

• Art History XIII - Ceramics
• Artistic Blacksmith - Projects II
• Forging Safety

Rene Petitjean has been a maker of objects for more than 40 years. After attending Sheridan College, he bought Robin Hopper's Hillsdale, Ontario studio in 1975 and began a reduction-fired line of pottery, selling to stores throughout North America. Moving to Creemore in 1979, the business expanded to include a selection of salt-glazed pottery sold under the Bowerman's Hollow logo. In the late 1980's Rene developed a fascination for wrought iron, and eventually left the ceramics field and began to design and build architectural iron. Many of his projects have been large in scope and have taken over a year to complete. Currently, he takes commissions from selected architects, builders and interior designers. In 1998 he assisted with the design of the Haliburton School of Art + Design's Artist Blacksmith Certificate Program, of which he is a faculty member. Rene also teaches in the Ceramics Certificate Program. www.renepetitjean.com

Susan Watson Ellis

Susan Watson Ellis followed graduation from the University of Toronto with an apprenticeship to a German Goldsmith. In 1981, she opened Paradigm Designs, creating handcrafted jewellery that sold across Canada. Her work won recognition in 2000 as part of the Craft Ontario's "Looking Forward" exhibition, which was curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England and represented contemporary Canadian craft. She was also chosen to be part of their "Craft in the Making II" exhibition in 2003, their juried exhibition "Ontario Craft '07", and to be one of eight jewellers chosen to be part of their "8 X 10 Jewellery" exhibition series in 2012. Her work is part of the permanent contemporary Canadian silver collection at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in Guelph, Ontario and is available from her studio in Haliburton, at the Toronto One of a Kind Shows, the Craft Ontario Shop, and online at www.paradigmjewellery.com.

Mary Pal

Mary Pal is a Toronto fibre artist best known for her cheesecloth portraiture, artworks that are made with sculpted cheesecloth that is stitched to a textile backing, using a technique she pioneered over a decade ago. The resulting portraits are meticulously detailed and exquisitely textural. Her work has been exhibited and collected throughout the world and published in numerous books and magazines. With over 40 years of teaching experience, she is a sought-after and popular instructor who enjoys sharing her knowledge and skills with her students around the globe. A past director on the board of the international organization, Studio Art Quilt Associates, Mary is an enthusiastic promoter of the burgeoning fibre art movement. www.marypaldesigns.com

Wendy E. Bateman

Wendy E. Bateman teaches weaving, spinning, braiding, creativity, textile science, and colour and design for textiles. She is a graduate "with distinction" from the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Spinning Certificate program, a Master Spinner, a graduate of Sir Sandford Fleming College's Visual and Creative Arts Diploma Program and has been the owner of Fibres WEB studio for over 50 years. She has received numerous design, originality and judges' choice awards for her work and enjoys teaching her craft and sharing her environmental ideas. A recipient of the Enviro Hero for the Arts Award and an OHS Merit Award, she is recognized for being environmentally attentive through her art practice.

Dagmar Kovar

Dagmar Kovar works primarily in fibres and drawing. With fibers, she creates sculptural works, hangings, and installations of various sizes, spanning from palm size sculpture to room installations. In drawing, she explores roots of creativity and the human mind. With her work, Dagmar explores how we connect to the world. Since 2012 she has focused primarily on the exploration of sources of creativity through the technique of "drawing with intuition", collecting valuable content and experiences, sharing these nearly continuously since then with students of widely various backgrounds, from novices to practicing artists. Dagmar has exhibited across Canada, the US, Europe, and China; received a number of government grants in support of her work; and her work is represented in private and public collections. For more than a decade, she has been teaching various art techniques as well as giving lectures and presentations on topics of creativity and connections with materials and methods. www.dagmarkovar.com