My very own Piasta 3-String CigarBox Guitar with dual pickups My friend David Piasta makes musical instruments in Wilson Creek. Cigar-box guitars, dulcitars, drums, and just plain instruments of strangeness that are as captivating as they are different. Some have necks made of wood from pallets. Others are fully formed from old church pews or [...]
It’s Sunshine Coast Arts Crawl Weekend… and the ShroomFest… and Sechelt Arts Festival – time to break out the rubber boots and get out and about on the Sunshine Coast.
by Diane Mueller Ami McKay, author of The Birth House and The Virgin Cure, walked on stage in the wooded open-air pavilion at the Sunshine Coast Festival of Written Arts and looked out onto a lecture hall filled with mostly 50 and up female readers and writers, instantly connecting with us as soon as she [...]
Northwords Documentary, 50 minutes FilmCan npp films inc. film+NEWmedia Film Trailer on Vimeo Writer Noah Richler summed up the sentiments best after the screening of the film ‘Northwords’ last night at the Rockwood Pavilion just ahead of the 30th Annual Festival of the Written Arts, and I paraphrase: Aboriginal Studies should be a mandatory requirement [...]
New Voices introduces authors Robyn Michele Levy and Kim Clark at the Sunshine Coast 30th Annual Festival of the Written Arts August 16-19, 2012
One of the great things about camera technology and software is that it puts the power of stunning imagery into the hands of people who may not be professional photographers but make up for it by regularly taking pictures and often of a certain type… Gigi Butterfly, an artist from Halfmoon Bay, very consistently, posts [...]
Deanna Cartea is one of my favourite Coast musician. I stumbled across her remarkable sound during a summer Music in the Landing event in lower Gibsons, where she was playing in the back lane behind the Molly’s Lane Market. A handful of people were ringing her in white resin chairs – the perfect stationary vehicle [...]
by Editor/Publisher Laurie McConnell I heard through the grapevine that a new ‘store’ was opening in the Trail Bay Centre this past weekend so dropped by to take a look. Originally I thought an arts studio was opening up in the space next to the washroom entrance on the south side of the mall, near [...]
Photographed in 1929 and narrated in 1980, this black and white film of 37 minutes will take you back to when tall ships sailed the oceans. During that year Irving Johnson sailed aboard the massive bark PEKING. The narration was done in 1980 by Mr. Johnson, who did the original filming – from the rigging [...]
by Editor/Publisher Laurie McConnell Sunshine Coast author Deanna Proach’s first novel, Day of Revenge, is a credible start to a promising writing career. Set in revolutionary France, the novel follows the lives of a group of Loyalists determined to fight the Revolutionaries, who are growing more paranoid and erratic by the day. The book centres [...]
Organizers pronounced the First Annual Sunshine Coast Art Crawl a huge success, with some galleries seeing as many as 250 visitors through in a single weekend. The ‘hub/bead’ concept was very popular, with some visitors coming from Powell River just to collect the four additional beads for their crawl bracelets from the hubs of Madeira [...]
A feel-good homegrown story for all small rural communities in BC: Gibsons performing artist Deanna Cartea has been signed by Citation Records in Los Angeles, California and is recording her first album. Deanna Cartea from Laurie McConnell on Vimeo. Bigpacific.com first stumbled across this evocative artist when strolling past Molly’s Lane after dinner along the [...]
Mix great jazz of all styles with small venues on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. and you have the phenomenon that is the Pender Harbour Jazz Festival. First established in 1966 by the local Music Society, the Festival is now an annual destination event for a crowd of jazz lovers from across the Pacific Northwest [...]
Artist Gigi Hoeller of Halfmoon Bay opened her studio just off Leaning Tree Road North for a tour with Bigpacific.com Publisher Laurie McConnell, and invites locals and visitors to tour her gallery of original art. Subjects are varied: gorgeous flowers, landscapes, architecture, and totems all find their way into her work. Gigi also creates original [...]
by Laurie McConnell Editor/Publisher, Bigpacific.com’s Guide to the Coast Every weekend April through October, I love visiting the Sechelt Farmer and Artisans Market at the Ravens Cry Theatre lot just across from St. Mary’s Hospital. For one thing, I always stop at Greta’s for freshly made bannock with home preserves (today it was blackberry/blueberry – [...]