ARTISANS GALLERY

Troy Townsin is a proud Canadian! Born in Melbourne, Australia, he worked as an actor and playwright before embarking on a round-the-world backpacking extravaganza taking him to six continents. Troy has won several awards for his writing, including a prestigious ‘Travel Writer of the Year’ award with TNT Magazine UK and four Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. A Moose in a Maple Tree Productions is a division of Polyglot Publishing created for children and for those who have a love for all things Canadian. The Moose in a Maple Tree collection and the exciting Canadian Monster Club series are true celebrations of Canada.

As well as writing children’s books, Troy has also co-authored a series of cookbooks based on the wineries of British Columbia. The ideas behind his books were conceptualized while he was in the process of becoming a Canadian resident. There was a period of over a year where he was prohibited from working or studying in Canada in accordance with Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s regulations. In order to keep himself engaged he began writing books. The Canadian children’s books are a celebration of him becoming a Canadian citizen – a process which took five years. Troy fell in love with a Canadian girl, married her and then fell in love with Canada, his new home.

Through their books and CDs, Troy and Polyglot aim to educate children and adults about the beauty and diversity of this great nation in a fun and entertaining way. They try to include every corner of the country in the contents of their books and CD. Their stories take readers across Canada visiting each province and territory and the musicians on their CD come from all over Canada with diverse backgrounds.

Jessica Broz creates distinctive lamps by upcycling found bases and crafting pendant lamps and bases from porcelain clay. She also produces unique ceramic pieces using techniques such as obvara, in which a piece is removed from the kiln at around 1000 degrees and dipped into a solution. As it’s pulled out, the solution burns onto the surface, creating one-of-a-kind patterns. All of her work is handmade, often using altered wheel-thrown forms.

At Advika Clothing, we make elevated basics that feel as good as they look. Designed and made in Montreal, our pieces blend ultra-soft, sustainable fabrics with timeless silhouettes for everyday wear. We’re rooted in slow fashion, keeping things local, intentional, and built to last.

And if you’re visiting us at a show, take your time, and hang out in our booth, it’s all about you! We’re here to help you find pieces that make you feel amazing, look great, and have fun doing it!

No one wants to wear accessories that everyone else wears; accessories are how we express our individuality. That’s why each Alarte Silks hand-painted scarf is an ORIGINAL like you.

Izabela designs and creates unique hand-painted scarves and nuno-felted shawls that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Izabela takes white silk and applies colours with brushes. After setting the colours through the steaming process and washing, the silk is ready for sewing and pleating.  Izabela uses a Japanese technique called Arashi Shibori to create texture and sculptural effect in her scarves and shawls.

She will also use hand-woven silk organza and unspun merino wool to create felted scarves and shawls. The technique is called Nuno felting, which combines wool and woven sheer fabric. Each piece is done by hand by pushing wool fibres into silk with soap and water and her magic fingers.

” My designs yield intentions of a woman with a lively and curious personality who frees herself from every kind of obstacle to be able to trot
from one end of the world to the other.” ~ Izabela Sauer

Jason Leo Bantle grew up on the outskirts of a Prairie town in Saskatchewan. His mother, Regina, gave him his first bird book when he was 12. His parents purchased a point-and-shoot camera for him when he was 14. Jason enjoyed black and white photography, spending hours in his high school photo lab. He would be out on the land before school and couldn’t wait for classes to end so he could return to the outdoors.

His passion never waned. He earned a B.Sc. in Biology and an M.Sc. in Ecology, doing his thesis on the interaction between nesting Arctic geese and the Arctic fox. His four summers conducting research in Canada’s Arctic ignited his artistic side and desire to share his northern experiences through photography. He began to display his artwork at various community art exhibits.

In 2000, Jason founded All in the Wild. His sister Jeannine joined soon after. They opened the first gallery near Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan in 2004, eventually expanding to galleries in Canmore and Banff in Alberta, Saskatoon and Waskesiu in Saskatchewan, and Niagara on the Lake in Ontario. Jason’s images are collected throughout the world; many editions are now sold out.

Jason was awarded the honour of “Highly Commended Photographer” in 2019 by the Natural History Museum of London, UK. It is one of the most prestigious honours in the world, awarded to a nature photographer: Only 50 images are selected out of 48,000 entries.

He is an avid outdoorsman, nature lover, adventurer, and proud Canadian. In 2010, Jason founded the All in the Wild Land Fund, which uses a percentage of proceeds from the sale of his photography to purchase and conserve wildlife habitat. When not living in his tent, Jason resides in Tweedsmuir, Saskatchewan and Canmore, Alberta.

From roasting to labelling, each Allo Simonne spread and bar is entirely made in their workshop in Montreal. Their chocolate and hazelnut products are delicious, healthy, refined, suitable for all palates and made from carefully selected premium ingredients.

After graduating from the Provincial Hotel Management School in Namur, Belgium, Quentin Ryckaert developed an interest in pastry and chocolate work. For his part, Vincent Coja, a roofer by training, worked in the construction industry for over 15 years. Their friendship first developed in their native Belgium, before taking a new turn a few years later in Montreal, when they decided to embark on a new adventure: developing and sharing their common love for high-quality, local, and exquisite chocolate spreads. Allo Simonne was born in 2018.

Inspired by Quentin’s grandmother (whose name was none other than Simonne Allo!), the entrepreneurs launched a range of gourmet spreads. “She was a resolutely modern woman in love with the finer things. Our products reflect her taste for the good, the beautiful, and the pleasure she took in sharing.” – Quentin Ryckaert

After their spreads, it’s time for Allo Simonne’s bean-to-bar tablets to make their appearance in 2023, entirely imagined, developed, and produced in our Montreal workshop.

Meet Ang Hill, a local Edmonton fashion brand owned by entrepreneur and designer Angela Johnson. Ang specializes in creating capsule wardrobe essentials that are both incredibly soft and effortlessly cozy. Each piece in her refined collection is thoughtfully designed and handcrafted by skilled sewists across Alberta, Canada. Fair warning—you’ll find yourself saying, “This is SO soft!” a lot!

It is my honour to design timeless + sustainable clothing for women like you!

A few years ago, I had a closet stuffed full of clothing that I never wore.  My dream in life was to become a fashion designer, and I always envisioned myself creating these elaborate gowns and crazy designs, but then I realized no one actually WEARS these! So I decided why not design clothes that women like us will actually WEAR that will allow us to feel like the confident women we always were meant to be…

In 2018, Ang Hill was just a crazy idea, but… over the years, I have refined this brand. Now, it is about comfort (only soft fabrics are found here), simple elegance and feeling your best – wearing what you WANT to wear and not jumping on the trend bandwagon.

Timeless designs that won’t go out of style.
A community of women who are in your corner.
And an owner who stands behind her products, customers and team

We take pride in producing our products ethically right in Alberta, Canada, by our small but mighty team of seamstresses.” ~ Angela Johnson

Artist Olufunke Olotu has been sewing for seven years and her sustainable clothing brand is three years old. Her sustainable clothing brand uses organic fabrics to create beautiful day wear and accessories that are super soft, breathable, and comfy with a touch of heritage.

“The climate change and fast fashion negative effects, plus the birth of my last child, made me consider how I can affect my world positively. I source eco-friendly fabrics such as bamboo from BC and ethically create in Calgary beautiful pieces that are soft, breathable and comfy.” – Olufunke Olotu

Calgary based artist Ashley Somerville’s paintings are inspired by her desire to showcase and celebrate Alberta’s native wildlife and natural spaces. She loves to capture the beauty and magic of everyday wildlife encounters in her paintings. Drawing influence from her own personal experiences, each painting captures the most intricate details of local animals;  every whisker, tuft of soft fur or feather. She has a particular fondness for birds, from the smallest of sparrows to her personal favourite, the great blue heron.

Her pieces are created in either acrylic or oil paint, rendered with immaculate care and brought to life through layers of colour and delicate textures. They almost seem like they could leap off the canvas. Every painting starts either in her sketchbook or her camera. It’s an important and significant part of her process to spend time out in nature, gathering references, taking photos and simply enjoying the quiet yet powerful moments that inform her art practice.

Darlene Kokotailo has been designing, carving and decorating real eggs for the past 34 years.  As a Calgary-based, self-taught artist, she has gained inspiration from nature.  This is reflected in the intricate floral carvings and detailed animal scenes of many of her designs.  Darlene also enjoys the challenge of creating a wide variety of carved eggs for many special occasions and diverse tastes, including custom designs. Each egg is beautifully unique, and depending on the design and shell, it takes anywhere from several hours to several hundred, from start to finish.  Whether Goose, Ostrich, Duck, or Quail, the shell is a strong and versatile medium that drives her passion for producing egg art.

Suzanne LeBlanc is an abstract artist who works with both one of the oldest mediums (encaustic – which blends wax, resin, and pigment) and with one of the newest ones (alcohol inks – pigment suspended in alcohol).

“My work as an abstract artist allows me to explore, to play, and to express my emotions through movement and colour. Each of my works fuses the intended composition of the piece with how I’m feeling and with an exploration of the materials and surface that I am working with at that time. I often become lost in the process – experimenting and leaping from idea to idea.

While many of my pieces are purely abstract, the influence of my deep love of nature informs other pieces – waves, sea life, flowers, rocks, trees, and landscapes make their appearances – sometimes recognizable, sometimes only hinted at. I’m currently exploring nature at the macro level – the incredible details found in shells, in tree bark, even in the oxidation as nature reclaims the things that we humans build.

My hope is  that people are moved and inspired by my work – by the playful celebration of movement and expression of emotion that is captured in each of my pieces.” ~ Suzanne Leblanc

At Beverage Bombs® we made it our MISSION to bring out the barista in you.  Our solid, diffusible coffee and tea bombs can be prepared with hot water and/or hot milk/dairy alternatives for a delicious latte.

We use the finest premium loose leaf teas, fresh roasted coffee beans, culinary-grade spices, organic botanicals and extracts to make our world-class coffee and tea bombs.

Now you can enjoy barista-quality beverages anywhere! Perfect for the office, camping, hiking and home.

David and Andrea Scade are the creators and owners of Black Diamond Distillery, the first-ever craft distillery in St. Albert, AB, opening their doors in 2018. Their small local business is family-owned and operated, so they’ll be the faces to look for at their shop or when they’re set up at local markets.

Using locally sourced ingredients, they produce award-winning handcrafted spirits and cocktails, specializing in flavour profiles for taste buds that love to be tickled by refreshing, naturally flavoured beverages.  Their small batches reflect Alberta’s beautiful landscape by featuring local organically-grown produce (whenever possible) and showcasing seasonal ingredients.

Black Diamond Distillery is one of the only craft distilleries in Alberta that produces 100% of the spirits they package and sell, a TRUE craft distillery – they believe that YOU deserve the very best, and that starts with a true craft spirit, made with love.

Stop by our booth and say hi! We love meeting you all in person and hearing your stories.

If you’re looking for dainty, bite-sized sweets, you are barking up the wrong tree. At Blink, we believe holiday chocolate should have some serious heft to it. We create massive, thick slabs of decadent chocolate and pile them high with incredible toppings to create the perfect artisanal bark.

Kyle used his global travel as a muse and relevant experience in the food industry as a spark to realize BLINK.  BLINK was launched in the humblest of beginnings back in 2011. Till then, chocolate bark was most often pre-broken almond bark in white, milk or dark chocolate. BLINK was born for those seeking tablet-sized, unbroken sharing planks of chocolate with high-quality topping arrangements in sleek, upscale, classy and fit-for-a-gift packaging.

Decadently packaged for holiday gifting, it’s the tastiest way to show someone you love them—or to subtly remind them that you have excellent taste. Stop by and grab a slab (or three), because nothing says “Happy Holidays” quite like a heavy brick of premium chocolate.

Bob uses Western Canadian stoneware clay and paperclay to form each sculpture. After a lengthy drying process, he fires them in an electric kiln to approximately 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. He uses stains and oxides with porcelain slip (liquid clay) to colour each piece.

“I love making my own glazes and infusing muted colours to allow the form to take center stage. I often add media such as found objects, gold, and encaustic wax. A small seashell I found in Central America, or a splash of gold invites the viewer to consider the piece in a different way. These playful touches add vitality to individual pieces.

I need to make art that brings me joy. Not only must the work emerge from my joy, but it must express an energy. I draw out that energy in the clay through the juxtaposition of rough and smooth surfaces, colour, and movement in each piece. People have said that each of my sculptures seems to have a personality. I love to hear how the work touches my collectors’ hearts in that manner.” – Bob Acton

Daryl Wasson is passionate about working with wood and its many different natural colours and grains. Daryl began in the retail market before an opportunity came up in 2002 that would allow him to work with his passion. He is proud to say that he “was finally able to do what he really enjoyed as a ‘job’.”

Apart from milling his own wood from the Maritimes, he collects end pieces that are discarded from a factory in Nova Scotia that would otherwise have been burned or thrown into the landfill. Daryl rescues these remnant pieces to recycle them into works of art that can be used every day.

Daryl designs and handcrafts each piece, taking into careful consideration his customer’s needs.

Finding her inspiration in the colours, textures, light, and shadows of nature, artist Brenda Banda Johnson transports us in each of her pieces.  Her outdoor pursuits and experiences – mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, skiing and snowshoeing – are usually what inspire her.  Brenda works primarily with palette knives and heavy-bodied paints because she loves how sculptural the results can be.

“Quality is at the root of all of my work. ‘Paint like you can afford it’ is a motto I live by – professional quality paints and mediums used lavishly, time invested as the piece requires – no rushing, undivided attention to carefully selected details.  I am fascinated by so many things in nature, and I feel compelled to try to capture them on canvas – colours, textures, contrasts, motion, energy and the essence of a place or animal.” ~ Brenda Banda Johnson