Fleming College

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

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

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.

Susan Rankin

Susan Rankin lives and works from her home in Apsley Ontario. She graduated with honors from Sheridan College, Oakville Ontario, in 1989 and received a three year artist in residency at the Harbourfront Centre glass studio, in Toronto from '89-'91 and a short term residency in '06. She has studied glass at the Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack School of Craft and Penland School of Craft in the U.S. Susan currently teaches glassblowing at the Haliburton School of the Arts, Haliburton Ontario. Her towering columns and lively voluptuous vessels wrapped in vines, leaves and flowers have been shown in 34 solo exhibitions and numerous invitational and group exhibitions across North America in many of the most prestigious venues for contemporary glass. Rankin has work included in public collections at the Corning Museum, Claridge Collection, Michel-Pierre Grenier Collection, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Winnipeg Art Gallery, USB Bank (Canada), Department of Foreign Affairs, Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Glazen Huis, Flemish Centre for Contemporary Glass Art, Lommel, Belgium, well as in many fine private collections. www.susanrankin.com

Melanie Matthews

Melanie Matthews followed her painting and drawing studies at Dawson College with the achievement of a BFA with distinction in Studio Art from Concordia University. She shares her time between her prolific personal art practice and an ever-expanding teaching schedule. Melanie is Golden Artist Colors Working Artist for Ontario and has been the Working Artist for Quebec since 2002. She is invited to lecture, offer workshops, and teach classes for many venues and art organizations, including the Visual Arts Centre, Dawson College, Concordia University, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Canadian Society of Artists. She instructs on a broad spectrum of topics, including methods and materials of acrylic painting, acrylic encaustic techniques, monoprinting, bigger is better (large scale image-making), painting on Plexi, essential acrylics, mixed media, digital mixed media, contemporary water media, creative colour mixing, image transfer, and more. www.melaniematthews.ca

Gunnel Hag

Instructor for:

• Fibre Arts - Pigment Applications

Gunnel Hag studied Textiles in Stockholm, Sweden and London, England. Her clothing, interior fabrics and wall art have been represented at International Art and Design exhibitions. She has received many grants and awards for her work, including Ontario Arts Council grants and a Ministry of Industry and Trade Award. In her studio in Toronto she prints and dyes all the fabrics for her art work. Over the years she has printed and dyed fabrics for film and theatre companies in Canada and the United States, as well as producing a line of hand printed fashion. Gunnel was a professor in the Textile Studio at Sheridan College, School of Crafts and Design in Oakville, Ontario for twelve years, and has been a visiting lecturer at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India. She is an enthusiastic, innovative and creative teacher, who teaches workshops and gives presentations and lectures internationally. Gunnel has published two books: Creating Texture and Creating Texture: Soft Texture. Her concern with health and safety, both in her studio and in the classroom, has led Gunnel to actively promote her water based Colour Vie Pigment System. www.colourvie.com www.gunnelhagstudio.com

Amanda McCavour

Amanda McCavour works with stitch to create large-scale embroidered installations. Through an exploration of line and its 2D and 3D implications, stitch is used in her artwork to explore various concepts such as connections to home, the fibres of the body, and more formal considerations of thread's accumulative presence. Amanda holds a BFA from York University where she studied drawing, and in May 2014 she completed her MFA in Fibers and Material Studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. She shows her work in galleries nationally and internationally with solo and two-person exhibitions in 2018 in Annapolis Royal (Nova Scotia, Canada), Stratford (Ontario, Canada), Tulsa (Oklahoma, USA), Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), Antigonish (Nova Scotia, Canada) and Ottawa (Ontario, Canada). She has recently completed residencies at Harbourfront Centre's Textile Studio in Toronto, at Maison des Metiers D'art de Quebec in Quebec City, and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City, Yukon. She has received numerous awards and scholarships from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, The Handweavers and Spinners Guild of America, Craft Ontario, The Ontario Society of Artists, The Surface Design Association and The Embroiderers Guild of America.

Karyn Gingras

Karyn Gingras, when signing up for a night school class in tap dancing, was told that the course was full. But, they added, the millinery course had lots of space. The rest, as they say, is history. Karyn is the owner/designer of Lilliput Hats, three decades old traditional millinery. As all the Lilliput hats are crafted on site in the studio/atelier, the store has become a curious landmark in the city, where visitors can glimpse old-world techniques while their hat is made before their eyes. Lilliput hats are carried across the country at Holt Renfrew and other fine boutiques in Canada and the US. The hats are in the collections of Whoopi Goldberg, Celine Dion, and former Governor General of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson. Karyn's many theatre, television, and film credits include Mama Mia, Music Man, and The Evelyn Dick Story. Most recently, she created the hats worn by Gord Downie on the Tragically Hip's Man Machine Poem tour. She is the recipient of several awards, including the 1999 City of Toronto Accessories Designer of the Year, the One-of-a-Kind Show Best Traditional Craft, and the One-of-a-Kind Show Hall of Fame. She has taught at the International Academy of Design and Ryerson University of Design. www.lilliputhats.com

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

Saskia Wassing

Saskia Wassing is an artist trained in embroidery and weave at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. She creates joyful textiles, inspired by her past experiences, observations and memories. Referencing her sketchbook drawings, Saskia works freely onto a textile ground. Embroidering by hand and by using a basic domestic sewing machine as her drawing tool, layering fabric and thread into colourful narratives. Saskia has exhibited her work extensively and been commissioned to design and produce custom furniture, textiles, embroidery and prototypes for individuals and industry. Saskia teaches to all ages and levels and is currently faculty in the textile department of Sheridan College. www.saskiadesigns.com