Author: Ken Bryson

Grey County has always been a place of layered stories. Going back thousands of years, multiple Anishinaabe peoples inhabited the land. More recently, the land also became home to European settlers and farmers. In this century, agriculture and other industries underpin a local culture that has come to embrace the arts.

This summer those layers will take on a physical form as part of Community Canvas: a Roger Mooking Experience at Grey Roots Museum & Archives.

Some places continuously inspire. For Owen Sound artist Kristine Moran, each visit to Moreland Place unlocks fresh inspiration, feeding a process that moves intuitively from line drawings to luminous large-scale canvases. It’s a practice built on layers of meaning and sustained by the strong circle of community she’s found along the way.

Wesley Bates chose the road less taken. Working in one of printmaking’s oldest traditions, the Clifford-based artist’s career has spanned commercial design, print making and book illustration — ultimately translating rural landscapes and human stories through the visual language of wood engraving.

When Rony Lec and Myriam Legault moved to their 100-acre property south of Desboro five years ago from Guatemala, they brought more than their young family. They brought traditional varieties of amaranth, corn, beans, and squash that represented decades of work preserving Mesoamerican food traditions.

When Elizabeth MacKenzie visited Neustadt one afternoon in 2018, she pressed her hands against the glass of the closed library, peering into darkness. “Crickets,” she recalls. The town was quiet and only a few stores were open. Yet something about the village, with its curve of road and historic buildings, whispered possibility.

Owen Sound artist Joanna Aplin explores the interplay of tension and release, often alternating between the emotional weight of figurative work and the freedom afforded by landscapes. Balancing detailed planning with intuitive play, she creates works that invite both artist and viewer to look deeper.

In the hills of eastern Grey County, something authentic is growing. A new collection of culinary entrepreneurs has created a dining scene that celebrates the area’s agricultural heritage and its evolving identity as a destination for authentic food experiences.

Artist Évelyne Richer is commited to letting her art speak for itself. The career abstract painter – and long-time resident of Grey County – begins each painting with a concept, but ultimately the painting decides what it wants to be. From there, it’s up to the viewer.

When I heard that MOSAIC was ready for a new life in this world, it captured my imagination. As a reader of the magazine for the near-twenty years I have lived in Grey Bruce / Saukiing Anishnaabekiing, I appreciated its mix of art, culture, and community. The timing was right, also, as I was eager to find a new place to work, grow, and expand creatively.