THE GIFT SHOP

Darryl is an established, versatile jeweler living and working in Port Hood, Cape Breton. His gold, silver, and gemstone creations include wedding rings, earrings, and jewellery with distinctive appeal. Celtic-inspired designs are inherent in Darryl’s work, as well as recurring textural themes found in leaves, shells and fossils that reflect the natural beauty of Cape Breton. Darryl also does custom work.

Virginia McCoy has been a painter and illustrator for more than 30 years. Virginia works in gouache or transparent watercolours and in oil. Raised in Northern Ontario of mixed Ojibwe, French and English Heritage. Virginia’s inspiration is the Canadian bush and the stories of the characters she finds there.

Home decor created with 100% local wool and alpaca fiber. Some also incorporate silk. JFE uses natural materials whenever possible. Also, they offer children’s toys knitted with Scandinavian yarn and stuffed with polyester stuffing made in Canada.

Paul Hannon is an American-born, Canadian artist, who lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he paints urban and coastal scenes of Atlantic Canada. Paul studied at the State University of New York at Oswego where he majored in Fine Arts and at Pratt Graphics in New York City where he studied with Anna Wong, and with Elaine de Kooning as part of the Empire State College “Studio Without Walls” program. Paul also studied watercolor media with Diana Kurtz at The Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He exhibited in California in the seventies and taught printmaking as artist-in-residence at The Venture Gallery in San Diego. In the eighties, he started a screen-printing, sign and display business in Boulder. Paul’s move to Nova Scotia in 1989 coincided with a renewed and reinvigorated connection to painting. Paul is represented in numerous public, private and corporate collections and he continues to live and work in Halifax.

Nancy Oakley is a First Nations artist of Mi’kmaq and Wampanoag descent. She was raised in Massachusetts where her father was the grand chief of Wampanoag Nation. She decided to move to her mother’s reserve in Eskasoni First Nation to better understand her heritage. She has been involved in art all her life, attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico and NSCAD. Nancy has had her own craft business for the last 20 years, focusing on pottery and beadwork. Her pottery is stone polished and smoke fired and incorporates sweetgrass used for purification in First Nation cultures. Nancy lives and works in Eskasoni.

The Larch Wood manufacturing plant is located in on the banks of the world-renowned Margaree River in Victoria County. Established as a manufacturer of floors, the owners of Larch Wood Enterprises decided to create cutting boards that would take advantage of the striking pattern of the end cuts of the larch tree. Over a year was spent designing and testing boards rendering a product that is beautiful, functional, and durable. Since their introduction, Larch Wood Heritage Cutting Boards have become best sellers across Canada and the US.

Tom Ryan was born and raised in Inverness, Cape Breton. He studied English at Mount Allison University and then moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he studied film production. He currently lives in Halifax with his husband and their dog, Wheeler. For more information, visit tomryanauthor.com.

Born and raised in rural Cape Breton, Sarah C. Tompkins began an early art life watching her father paint from his lap as a baby while he sang and told stories of Cape Breton's past. Her aunts would sing old Gaelic songs to her and her large family which instilled a love of traditional Cape Breton music which she plays on piano. She studied fine art at Mount Allison university for three years and came back home to learn her people's native tongue, Scottish Gaelic. She finds most of her inspiration from the people, the sea and the hills. Her mediums include oil, acrylic, watercolour, charcoal, graphite, India ink and photography.

I am a self-taught textile folk artist working with cloth to make fine art quilts and traditional hand-sewn textiles. I have been dabbling in fibre ever since I can remember only I didn’t know it was art. I made little pictures for myself in high school and for my kids later on. My first love has always been handwork – and colour, lots and lots of colour.

Born and raised in Cape Breton, Kris Tynski developed a strong admiration for the outdoors. His lens captures the wildlife, seascapes, and landscapes of the Island, focusing on the eagles, fox, heron, and deer that inhabit Cape Breton.

Heather Gabriel Smith is an artist and a cartographer. She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia: her hometown and the subject of most of her art. Her primary medium is woodcut printmaking, but she also makes oil paintings and hand drawn maps.

Heather studied fine art at Queen's University and cartography at the Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS NSCC). She has lived in British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, the Annapolis Valley, and Southern California, but is happy to be home now.