Susanne Jennifer Pratt, an artist herself, showed us through the Bartlett Gallery. Jennifer is an equine painter and just returned from a commission in Sweden. She has also created portraits of the horses of the Canadian Olympic Team. Then she took us on a tour of the Bartlett Gallery. Several paintings in the gallery were by Jean Claude Roy, a French painter whose vibrant, expressive landscapes have a large following in France, Canada and the United States.
Jennifer Pratt with a painting by Jean-Claude Roy
Then we dropped in briefly on Jordan’s wife, Meg Floyd, who runs the Alton Mill Gallery which mostly represents local artists that do not have studios here at the Alton Mill. On the second level we also made a stop at the studio of Mark Grice who had just finished running “Art Slam”, a special event during the Cuisine-Art Festival, where seven painters paint the same motif. A model seated at a chair with an apple and a knife was painted by all seven artists, and it was amazing how all the artists visualized the same scene completely differently.
Mark Grice with a painting from his “Roadkill Series”
Mark himself also rents a studio at the Alton Mill where he teaches art to adults and children. His ultra-realistic painting style is very popular for portrait commissions. The most fascinating and unusual part of his paintings was the “roadkill series”, extremely detailed and strangely beautiful paintings of animals that were killed on the road. These photogenic yet disturbing paintings are very provocative and create a lot of discussion.
Healthy local produce on display at Cuisine-Art
To mix food with art, Jordan took me back outside into the bright sun and we had a chat with several more of the food merchants that were part of Cuisine-Art. The young lady from Caledon Farm showed us her organic rainbow carrots and lettuce mixes, while the owners of Heather Lea Farm Market talked to us about their additive-free meat products. Sigrid Holm, owner of “From the Kitchen to the Table” in Orangeville, showed us a variety of practical kitchen gadgets and gave us a taste of her piña colada food dip. Everyone was having a good time on this sunny day.
People are thoroughly enjoying the cooking demonstrations at Cuisine-Art
Finally, we stopped at the stand for “I Scream for Ice Cream”, an ice cream store in Orangeville. Owner Michelle pointed out that her products contain only real cream and no edible oil products. She makes fresh ice cream, ice cream cakes, fudge, chocolates and gift baskets. The teasing was a bit too much, I just had to taste some ice cream myself and it was absolutely delicious.
The Alton Mill and Cuisine-Art: a great event for food and art lovers
Cuisine-Art was still in full swing and tonight a live performance of the “Taming of the Shrew” was planned in the Annex. Unfortunately, I was going to miss that because I had planned to visit another destination in the Hills of Headwaters area: the village of Cheltenham.
Nice walking trails surround the Alton Mill
