Linda Frena carefully hangs some handmade glass candy cane ornaments on a tree at the front of the Alberta Craft Council Gallery on 101st Avenue and 106th Street in Edmonton.
The retail gallery coordinator is getting ready for their big events, Twas the Night, on Nov. 25.
“This is a place where you’ll find more than 150 artists’ work from across the province. We have ceramic, glass, jewelry as well as metal and wood,” Frena said.
Christmas ornaments on sale at the Alberta Craft Council Gallery were created by Edmonton fibre artist Holly Boone. (Adrienne Lamb/CBC)
Space to display the work of Alberta crafters is expanding, according to executive director Tom McFall.
“We’re on a bit of a growth spurt,” said McFall, who will open a new 2,000-sq.-foot shop in the cSPACE ‘arts incubator’ in Calgary’s old King Edward School in the summer of 2017.
He also expects the council operations in Edmonton to shift to the Arts Habitat in the Quarters at 96th Street and 102A Avenue when the proposed project is complete.
Alberta Craft Council executive director Tom McFall is excited about the expansion of artistic display space. (John Robertson/CBC)
McFall comes from a family of crafters; his grandfather was a blacksmith, both his grandmothers quilters.
“Basically if you were poor you couldn’t afford to have somebody else making things for you, so you just learned to do this on your own,” said the fourth-generation Albertan.
McFall believes the expansion into the new space will offer a more professional-looking gallery for crafts, helping to increase awareness nationally and internationally of the work being created in Alberta.
The work of Calgary artist Triniruth Bautista is displayed in the feature gallery at the Alberta Craft Council. (John Robertson/CBC)
“I think the making of anything is a really important human need,” McFall said. “It’s like music and food and dance we just want to do it.”
You can see more from the Alberta Craft Council Gallery on Our Edmonton Saturday at 10 a.m. and Sunday and Monday at 11 a.m. on CBC TV.
Alberta Craft Council Gallery3:25