Field Notes for Autumn 2022
What to paint, visit and ponder this autumn.
Wall of fame
The latest success of the Downtown Bolton Revitalization Plan is hard to miss. A vibrant new mural by Toronto-based artist Blaze Wiradharma livens up the underpass of the Queen Street North bridge and makes for an artful pitstop along the Humber River Heritage Trail. The town’s idea was to take spaces covered in graffiti and revitalize them with intentional graffiti that reflected the town and surrounding landscape.
Created over seven days, Blaze’s work is a colourful tribute to the Humber River and the wildlife that depend on it. The artist, who studied illustration at the Ontario College of Art & Design University, has since completed a beautiful portfolio of murals all over Ontario.
Rosemary Molesworth
A passion for pottery
Two pottery shows to mark on your calendar. The first is a posthumous exhibit of a well-known local potter at Museum of Dufferin. Rosemary Molesworth: From There to Here runs October 1 to January 21, 2023. Rosemary, who died in early 2022, spent more than 40 years experimenting with her art, often adorning her pieces with playful floating figures and creatures such as moose and cats. As Rosemary told the museum staff while working on the exhibit (it was delayed over the pandemic), she hoped visitors would be “intrigued, inspired, amused and educated to some of the possibilities and numerous pitfalls that can occur during the creative process.” The opening reception takes place October 1 from 1 to 4 p.m.
At East Garafraxa’s Hereward Farms, writer and clay artist Ann Randeraad stages a solo show, Rise Again, which centres on the healing process after domestic abuse. Ann has created poems, pottery, sculpture and a new book, Rise Again, on the theme. This event is a fundraiser for Orangeville’s Family Transition Place and will be held inside the farm’s barn boutique and lounge November 9 to December 4. The opening reception is November 12 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Theatre for the birds
This fall comic playwright Norm Foster, whose works include The Melville Boys and On a First Name Basis, returns to Theatre Orangeville with a brand new venture – They’re Found in Trees, in which two middle-aged birders expand their birding club and meet up with a recently divorced woman looking to take her mind off her failed marriage. The play runs October 12–30.
Fall feast
Taste of Autumn is the Rotary Club of Orangeville Highlands’ largest fundraiser of the year. On October 22, enjoy a menu catered by Caledon-based Gourmandissimo and craft beer tasting by Orangeville’s Taphouse Brewing Co. Top off the night with a silent auction and dancing to pop standards and classics by duo Old School.
Photo courtesy Downey’s Farm Market
Pumpkins with a side of family fun
Downey’s Farm Market in Caledon offers hours of kid fun with enormous jumping pillows, an 8-acre corn maze, and puppet shows running to October 31. In October, visit the Dixie Orchards pumpkin patch, pick your own hazelnuts and then ride back to the car in a wagon. At Sweet Pea’s Farm in Amaranth add a tree slide, a bouncy castle, barnyard basketball and a petting zoo to your pumpkin shopping until October 30.
The meaning of headcoverings
Toronto Metropolitan University fashion lecturer Laura Morlock and King’s College London postdoctoral fellow Cristina Moreno-Almeida put their heads together with staff at the Waterloo Region Museum to create an intriguing new fashion-based installation, Un/Coverings: Mennonite & Muslim Women’s Heads and Hearts at Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives.
The exhibit unpacks biases around head coverings worn by Mennonite and Muslim women in Canada. “Mennonite and Muslim women represent so much diversity and complexity. Their identities are as creative as the clothes they wear,” said Morlock in a statement. “Visitors will challenge themselves to look beyond what they think they know and ask questions like, ‘Why do Muslim head coverings cause such visceral reactions? Do Mennonite bonnets provoke the same response? And when the vast majority of both North American Mennonite and Muslim women don’t veil at all, why do these head coverings receive so much (and such different) public attention?’” The show opens November 1 and runs until May 31.
Take a contemplative walk
There are two special walks this fall to mark on the calendar. On the heels of Orange Shirt Day (September 30), the Dufferin County Cultural Resource Circle, in partnership with the Dufferin County Multicultural Foundation, hosts the Dufferin County Memorial Walk for Residential Schools. This orange shirt event on October 1 is from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Expect a smudging ceremony and a quiet walk to honour those recovered and yet to be recovered from unmarked graves at residential school sites across Canada, and to honour recovering survivors of that system.
Then, on October 15 and 16, the Belfountain Heritage Society offers walkers a way to connect with local history along the West Credit River. Discover landscapes that inspired several members of the Group of Seven, watch fly-fishing demonstrations, and immerse yourself in the history of the area’s earliest inhabitants via a display of Indigenous artifacts. This event is a fundraiser to help with costs of monitoring the river and protecting the native brook trout. The tour is self-led with volunteers stationed at several vignettes along the way. Tickets can be purchased online.
Hot tip
Another bit of good news for history buffs: Caledon Heritage Foundation has launched a new website. Visit caledonheritagefoundation.com to access fascinating photos and current heritage news.
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