Thursday, April 18, 2013

Les Galleries Toft

 Some time ago, when workmen were in our house, we overheard a comment: "This house is filled with pictures." So true. The collection has been amassed over decades. The one above is a painting of our home in Red Lake painted by Gary Lovett, the art teacher at Red Lake District High School Gary was beginning to make a name for himself as a N.W. Ontario artist when he died. We are happy to have this commissioned piece.
 This print was one of the first we bought while in Canada. It was purchased at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto while we lived in Elgin.
 This is a print of the cathedral in Ely, England. We visited this cathedral with Anne's brother, Jeff, who lives near there.
 These prints are historic buildings near our home town of Stoke-on-Trent. The upper one is Cheddleton Railway Station. It is the starting point of a revitalised steam railway, and was the village I was raised in.
 The Tree of Life hangs in our bedroom. It was a long ago purchase from The Thousand Villages store in Winnipeg.
 Our son, Julian, gave us these two Benjamin Chee Chee prints.

 The plate with English canal boats was given us by my sister, Joan. We rented canal boats on trips to England and these bring back memories of those holidays.
 This painting of a rose is by a local Kanata artist. I shared space at her house on a studio tour.
 The print from Newcastle-under-Lyme enables us to remember Anne's Mum who lived there. The detailed marquetry picture of musical instruments were a gift from Anne's brother, David.

 This winter scene of the Rideau Locks was a gift to us from our son, Nathan.
 This plate of lilies was purchased at another studio tour.
 From our Red Lake Days, this Don Ningewance painting of a Red Tailed Hawk reminds us of our life there.
 The Roches, the southern end of the Pennines, is a hiking area of our youth.
 This gallery wall of prints from the potteries, a painting of the flint grinding water mill at Cheddleton, and the Mayor of Burslem, an ancestor of Anne's, look good as a collection.
 The three First Nation prints here were obtained last year at the Spencervill Heritage Fair in exchange for a basket of mine.
 This is another purchase form a Thousand Villages.
 Our most recent purchase, made just last week, was a painting by a child with autism at a fund-raiser for Quick Starts, a program for early intervention in the lives of children with autism.
 In the basement a gallery of small pictures is our overflow area.
 Gandalf was a very early purchase.
The last print is another one from a person with autism.

That completes most of our gallery.

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