By Wendy Wang and Michelle Zeng

The funny nutcracker, the giant Christmas tree and the handcrafted figures — Lowe’s Toronto Christmas  Market has it all. The event took place at the Distillery District. The historic site has been transformed into a festival of art, culture and entertainment. The Christmas Market is a street market that celebrates the wonders of Christmas. We had the pleasure of doing a phone interview with Matthew Rosenblatt. He is the Co-Owner and main organiser of the Distillery District and Market.

“The Distillery District is a historic area of Toronto, which includes the largest collection of Victorian buildings in North America. It used to be the major place to make whiskey, but now has become a line of shops and art galleries.” Rosenblatt said. 

One shop we visited was Bergo Designs. It looked like a normal store from the outside, but inside it contained some of the most bizarre yet funny items. They are not just crafts; they can be used in daily life, such as the gun-shaped lighter and the cat-shaped bowl. Among them was a nutcracker  shaped like a tall metal pole, accompanied with a metal ball with which you can smash the nut. There were many surprises at every corner of the store. One thing that stood out was the “reluctant bride” craft, which was a wedding topper of a groom dragging the bride. Taking photos in the store was prohibited because the designers were afraid their ideas would be stolen.

By Michelle Zeng

The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair was a great place to be, no doubt about that. The Fair had lots of great things: a petting zoo, animal shows and of course, the amazing shops.

When we got to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, we were amazed to see what was there. Everybody at
the Fair seemed pleased. While some people greeted each other, others were running around shopping. Of course, the first thing we saw were the shops. They seemed to sell practically everything – food, hats, scarves, souvenirs, toys, and even riding gear!

While browsing the stores, we had time to interview the vendors and the shoppers at the Fair.

We caught up with two shoppers outside a booth selling tack. We asked Megan and Debra Brownrig what they had bought so far.

“We bought saddle pads, a hoof pick, brushes, and stirrups,” said Debra.

It sounded like a lot of riding gear. When asked what all the gear was for, Debra told us they had bought it for Megan’s first riding lesson, which would be on her seventh birthday. We were curious as to why a six year old girl would want to ride horses.

“Riding horses is fun! My sister rides horses,” Megan said. Megan also told us she had a pony named Otise.

After thanking Debra and Megan for their time, we went to another store that sold knitted colourful purses,
clothing such as vests and hats, and finger puppets featuring animals and characters from famous stories. We helped ourselves to what we wanted first, and then took the chance to interview the vendor of the store, Silvia.  She told us she has been in Canada for 30 years and had been coming to the fair for 15 years. Can you believe  that? 15 years, which was half the time she lived in Canada. Silvia really liked the fair.

Next we visited a cheese stand. The vender, Grace Vanoudenaren, was very busy. There were many customers sampling and buying cheese. We could taste why she was so busy. The cheese was just  delicious. There seemed to be more than a million flavours. I wish I could go back and eat some more!

By: Michelle Zeng and Sunni Zhou

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) presents “Get Animated” to give kids the chance to learn how to animate. “Get Animated” was really popular. Over 30 kids attended the programon October 30, 2011.

The program invited guest speaker, Co Hoedeman, known for his Oscar award winning film the “Sandcastle”. He was there to demonstrate his animation techniques and also to teach kids how to animate.

The kids made their own animated videos. Hoedeman divided 30 kids into groups. Each group made one animated video and the characters to go along with it. The characters for the videos had to be made in a special way in order for the video to be more interesting. For example, to make a person, the artist would have
to draw a head, cut it out, draw the face, cut it out, and then do the same for the rest of the body. The animated characters were made like this so each body part can move and make facial expressions.

One second in an animated film will need 24 pictures. Since there was only an hour for the kids to create the characters and the videos, all the videos were fairly short.

Despite all the work involving creating animations, Hoedeman said, “Creating animations is simple.”

Perhaps that’s why so many people attended “Get Animated.”

Voice K had a chance to sit down with Hoedeman:

Voice K: Is it hard to make animated videos?
Hoedeman: No, actually it is very simple.
Voice K: Roughly how many videos have you made so far?
Hoedeman: So far, I have made 23 films. They are all animated films. All of my videos are for children.
Voice K: How do you get ideas for your videos?
Hoedeman: All the videos I have made are based on what I have seen and experienced.
Voice K: Which video of yours got an award?
Hoedeman: Many of the videos I made have gotten an award. One of my videos, “The Sandcastle,” received an Oscar Award in 1978, which was a long time ago.
Voice K:  What materials did you use to make your videos?
Hoedeman: I didn’t always use paper. For “The Sandcastle”, I used puppets made of sand.
Voice K: What was your favourite part of today?
Hoedeman: My favourite part of today was helping the children to get ideas. I really like how the children made the artwork.

Hoedeman was not the only person who was enthusiastic about “Get Animated!” Many other people gave “Get Animated” a thumb up. One participant, Kyle said, “It was very good.” Others agreed, including Glenda and her daughter, who said that “‘Get Animated’ was great! In fact, we had been to NFB art programs over 10 times,
we would love to come again.”
Later, Voice K had a chance to interview Jessie Curell, who works for NFB to organize
the program. “I was inspired by Mr. Hoedeman because it’s a rare opportunity
to work with him and learn from him,” said Jessie when asked what inspired him to
organize the event.
We really enjoyed the program, so why don’t you “Get Animated”?For more information about this program, visit www.nfb.ca/getanimated.

By: Michelle Zeng and Gratiana Chen

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is an interesting gallery with different types of art.

We were amazed when we first saw the gallery on Nov. 13, 2011. It is in the middle of a fairly small forest and over the next hill is a city.

At first sight, McMichael looked like a simple small building with a sculpture of a bear outside of it. On the inside, however, it was a huge building with 13 galleries full of art. It seemed like the founders of McMichael, Robert and Signe McMichael, worked hard to create it.

Robert and Signe were a lovely couple who believed art should be preserved. That’s why they decided to create
an art gallery. Signe and Robert were not exactly rich. They had to build the McMichael gallery using old cut down trees. It was the only material they had. At first, the gallery was nothing but a small cottage. Then gradually, it began to grow. The McMichaels went around the world collecting art and gathering more materials
to use. They worked and built their gallery until everything was perfect. All the hard work they did built the McMichael Canadian Art Collection that we have today. The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is owned by the province of Ontario. It keeps paintings for the joy of seeing the beauty of art. Since the gallery is made and
kept in the wilderness, it uses nature to help with electricity. Solar panels on the roof of the gallery make that possible.

Art is not the only thing at McMichael. Many people with knowledge of the artists’ paintings stay there too.  One volunteer named Liese told us an interesting fact about the Group of Seven. She told us that there really were 10 people in the Group of Seven! There were originally seven members in the group, but one member quit, and more joined. The Group of Seven really should have been called the Group of Ten, but the name “Group of
Seven” stuck, and it stayed like that until all members in the Group passed away. Stephen Weir, a spokesperson of the gallery, not only showed us around the gallery, but told us about himself as well.

At first, he only delivered paintings to the art gallery. It was the First Nations that inspired Weir to come to the gallery. In 1978, a painter first hired him to write legends for the First Nations paintings.

Weir was extremely picky on what paintings he liked and disliked. The painting he hated was a painting called
Benedicta. At first glance, the painting looked fine. The painting was of a young girl standing on a beach. If you looked closely at the painting, however, you would see that the “water” in the ocean was just blue splotches. Weir also pointed out that the girl’s hands were huge – almost as big as the girl’s head! According to Weir, that was not right.

Although Weir disliked Benedicta, he had his favourite paintings as well. One very special painting that Weir liked was Shaman and Disciples by Norval Morrisseau, a First Nations artist. Weir liked Shaman and Disciples because, in his opinion, it was extremely native and original.

Weir also showed us a few sculptures created by First Nations artists. One is called To Do Da Ho. It showed gods on a turtle`s back, surrounded by serpents. It represented how the First Nations thought the world was created. Another sculpture was The Migration. It showed men rowing a boat. There were multiple copies of this
sculpture because it was a popular piece of art that many people would want. Those two sculptures were very famous First Nations pieces of art.

Some information about Lawren S. Harris, Emily Carr, and Tom Thomson were generously given to us. Lawren S. Harris was a wonderful artist. He was part of the Group of Seven and was very rich. He painted mostly mountains. Harris had a very special style of painting. He loved using geometric shapes and different shades
of blue. Plus, the lighting in his paintings was really something special. It seemed to cast a magical glow on the already beautiful mountains every time. Lawren S. Harris really knew how to mix modernity, shapes
and creativity to make beautiful paintings. Emily Carr was a woman who liked to push a baby monkey in a stroller. Though she was an artist, she wasn’t as respected as the Group of Seven or Tom Thomson,
as Carr was a woman. She got so discouraged that she even stopped painting! Only the Group could get her to paint again.

Tom Thomson was another contemporary member of the Group. Unlike Emily Carr, Tom Thomson was greatly respected for his art. He was a very poor man who liked Algonquin Park, for he painted many pieces of fine art based on it, such as his painting called Canoe Lake. Unfortunately, his love for Algonquin Park eventually led to his death. One day Thomson paddled out to Canoe Lake and was never seen alive again. A replica of Tom Thomson’s cabin was displayed outside the gallery.

The gallery does not only have artists that painted pictures; it includes filmmaking artists as well. One of them is named Jack Chambers. Jack Chambers was the first man to start filmmaking. He was very experimental. Every day at about ten o’ clock, he would go out to his backyard and take the same film pictures every day.
He wanted to make pictures look more like frames in a movie, so he started to use aluminum paint to try to approximate what you would see on film. Chambers enjoyed filmmaking but had to stop after a while because the aluminum paint fumes were making him sick. Jack Chambers was a great filmmaker.

Outside the gallery, people could enjoy famous arts too. The Sculpture Garden was part of the gallery outdoors. It showed sculptures of different kinds by Ivan Eyre. Even though we couldn’t go into the Garden, we learned that it was in the forest, and that there was a trail people could follow in order to see all the sculptures.

The McMichael Cemetery is a great place to pay respect for the famous people buried there. Six members of the Group, such as Lawren Harris, are buried in the cemetery, as well as other people who have helped with the amazing creation of the McMichael. Even Signe and Robert McMichael are buried there! That proves that the gallery respects all artists of today and tomorrow.