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MARKET MUSINGS


By Jan Freedman

Despite Saturday's dreary weather, the Apples and Honey Fest was quite well attended.
Fortunately, the predicted thunderstorms didn't materialize during Market time. With the arrival of fall on Thursday, we are beginning to wind down the outdoor season, with just three more weeks to go.
After we close outdoors on October 8, we will be moving to the Armoury on October 15 and 29, November 12 and 26 and finishing on December 10. We will not be having any indoor markets after December.
Now, let me introduce another new vendor this year, Michelle Zikovitz.
Although born in Toronto, Michelle spent many of her early years and summers in Vienna, exploring the beautiful historic city and surrounding countryside. Combined with the talents of her parents; one a visual artist and freelance cinematographer and the other working in the fashion industry, Michelle has been surrounded by art for as long as she can remember.
Michelle was drawn to fabric, fibre, paints and drawing materials during her early years in Austria. She would play with the oils and pastels in her father's studio or gather scraps of fabric with artistic potential from her mom's sewing table. She would collect discarded upholstery samples, paint and wall paper samples to create houses for her Barbie dolls and, later, to create mixed media pieces.
Initially, she took to tapestry weaving by building her own frame loom in her early teens, graduating to floor looms shortly after her marriage. She realized she had found an ideal partner when they purchased a floor loom before a dining room table. Her early weaving years were spent making woven rugs, placemats and runners in the time available while looking after her young children.
As family life evolved and work and four children took up a great deal of time, she found that the portability of basketry weaving was a better fit. A long time member of the Burr House Weavers and Spinners Guild, Michelle took several basketry workshops and became “hooked”. The ability to weave baskets almost anywhere contributed to her new found passion. She discovered that she could weave baskets while waiting for her children at ball games, hockey games or figure skating venues or on long car trips. Now she weaves while at the Aurora Farmers' Market while waiting for the opportunity to talk to curious customers. She has been weaving functional baskets for over 20 years and has taught basketry weaving for the past 15 years, throughout southern Ontario.
Reed is her personal material of choice. She incorporates her own hand dyed reed whenever possible. She enjoys experimenting with random dye techniques or “space dyed” skeins of reed that help create many unique colour combinations and truly one-of-a-kind baskets.
When not weaving or taking courses, Michelle loves to dabble in photography, sewing, fibre arts and various painting mediums. She likes to explore and connect with local basket weavers, artists, shops and galleries when travelling which has resulted in many friendships with artistic people around the world. Michelle works as the Art Supervisor for the Town of Richmond Hill. She will be at the Market on October 1 and 8 as will as some of the indoor Markets.
The next Special event is our Soup Fest on October 8 for Culture Days when our music will be provided by the Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School Grade 11 Jazz Band.
Be sure to mark it on your calendar!

See you at the Market!
Post date: 2016-09-21 21:48:12
Post date GMT: 2016-09-22 01:48:12
Post modified date: 2016-09-21 21:48:12
Post modified date GMT: 2016-09-22 01:48:12
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