by Rob Riendeau

How far would you go for a good meal?

There are a couple of ways to interpret that question. It could mean how far would you travel for a delicious dinner. Or it could mean, how much of a challenge would you be prepared to undertake for a healthy lunch. It’s this second interpretation that connects a couple of items I’d like to share this month.

The 100-Mile Diet

Recently, a Vancouver couple has been getting a lot of attention in foodie and green blogs on the internet for their particular take on this question. Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon decided that they would spend a year buying and gathering their food and drink within a 100-mile radius of their home and chronicle their efforts on the internet.

Continue reading "Local is the New Organic" »

Posted on October 27, 2006 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Sally Hansen

Susie Osler’s ceramic pottery celebrates her life-long love affair with nature. Both her highly decorated ornamental pieces and her more functional pieces invite the viewer/user to share their creator’s delight at the ingenuity and sensuality of the natural world.

Osler fashions complex ornamental pieces that evoke a sense of wonder and engender curiosity about humanity’s relationship with nature. There is a strong subtext evident in many of her pieces. The stunning flower vase she created after 9/11, replete with pistols, is a striking example. Many of her ornamental pieces explore the themes of excess, of abundance gone a bit too far, of over-ripeness. In some of her works, nature’s fecundity threatens to overwhelm humans, and in others, she suggests that human excess threatens to overwhelm lessons available from the past.

Continue reading "The Ceramic Wizardry of Osler" »

Posted on October 5, 2006 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)