| Collection Room | 
| There is no item this month. Sorry about that but we do promise to have a brand new one for June!
For information, visit our Collection Room online. |
| MEDALTA MEMBERSHIP | 
Any time is a good time to become a member of Medalta but this summer may be a bit better than the rest.
You see, Medicine Hat's One Book One Community group is very close to releasing the 2011 book, which is a centrepiece of our Decorator, Jigger and Executive memberships.
And we have added another nice little summer benefit for our members. CineMagine is a french film festival (with subtitles) which is debuting in Medicine Hat this summer after moving from Fort Macleod. They have offered all existing members ONE FREE movie admission during the festival which runs from June 10 - 12.
These are in addition to the regular offers from throughout Medicine Hat and Southeast Alberta.
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| THE HIVE | 
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On May 20, an exhibition by Hive artist Hayden Werezak is opening.
The Exhibition - Arborglyphs - is an attempt to capture the forms of trees both in and out, retold within its very substance. No two trees are exactly the same, each one is shaped by a myriad of forces at work each day. My work on these already amazing examples of art, seeks to be just as unique as the pieces that I work upon. ~HW
OPENING RECEPTION: May 20, 2011, 7:00-10:00pm
Refreshments served
For more information, visit their website or join their Facebook group.
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| ESPLANADE | 
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Until June 19, Common/Opposites - a solo exhibition by ceramist Les Manning - is on display at the Esplanade.
Common/Opposites presents the most recent works in clay by Les Manning, the internationally recognized ceramist based in Medicine Hat, Alberta.
The new work represents a shift in method for Manning who previously worked primarily with the wheel. The new work is primarily hand-built sculpture.
Medalta Members receive free admission to the Esplanade Art Gallery.
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| MONARCH THEATRE | 
| This week, the Monarch Theatre is showing Paul, a science-fiction comedy about two British men who are on a UFO-tour of America and encounter an alien trying to return to his home planet.
Medalta Members get two free tickets to the Monarch Theatre.
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INSPIRE STUDIO. GALLERY. CAFE! | 
| Inspire Cafe has quickly proven itself to be one of Medicine Hat's favourite lunch spots. What you may not know is that they're also pretty busy in the evenings with live music or other events.
And what may be even more exciting is they're licensed now too! There's no better way to wash down home-made perogies than with a tasty Moosehead lager.
In addition to their cafe business, they have also been the lunch providers for our Coffee Cupping and Flower Arranging workshops.
If you want to keep up with them, your best bet is through their Facebook group.
Inspire has probably the best selection of local art, including Harvey Fix, Angie Cramer and - of course - Maureen Newton, who is one of the owners.
If you're a Medalta Member, show your card. You'll receive a 15% discount on meals, art or art classes.
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MEDICINE HAT FOLK MUSIC CLUB | 
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Gurf Morlix, along with director/filmmaker Kevin Triplett will be presenting the intriguing story of Blaze Foley during seven "Music & Movie" nights throughout Alberta.
The Medicine Hat Folk Music Club is pleased to be co-presenting this event with GoToAGig.com on June 7th beginning at 7:30 pm at the Monarch Theatre.
Tickets may be purchased at Mike's Meats, Framing and Art Gallery, The Zucchini Blossom and Customer Service at the Medicine Hat Mall.
For more information, visit their website. |
THE CLAY TRADE | 
| There is a new gallery and pottery studio in downtown Medicine Hat - The Clay Trade.
The Clay Trade - Unveiling Friday June 10, 2011 @ 7 pm 628 2nd Street SE Featuring work by Les Manning, Dixie Baker, Jane MacKay, Xanthe Isbister, Koi Neng Liew and more!!
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CINEMAGINE FILM FESTIVAL | 
| The cIneMAGINE Society is a non-for-profit organization responsible for promoting French films to Francophones and Francophiles of Alberta.
Given its provincial mandate, the Society benefits from the support of numerous private, community, and governmental partners.
This year's festival is from June 10 - 12 at the Monarch Theatre.
2011 Festival Movies:
Incendies
10 1/2
The Child Prodigy
The Illusionist
2 Frogs in the West
Funkytown
Of Gods and Men
See the full program here
In addition, Medalta is the in-movie sponsor for the Saturday night feature, Funkytown.
To get people out to their movies, they have offered Medalta Members one free movie admission which we really think you should take advantage of.
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MEDALTA, IN THE HISTORIC CLAY DISTRICT
MAY 2011 |
Summertime at Medalta
Summer is an excellent time to be down at Medalta. This week, the Shaw Centre began its summer programming with six artists lead by ceramic artist Bruce Cochrane. There will be two days of artists' talks, which you are encouraged to attend. It's one thing to see art in a gallery but another thing entirely to meet the artist and gain a better understanding of where the ideas come from.
On Saturday, May 28, the Medicine Hat Community Band concert will again be performing at Medalta, in the new Reception Gallery. There is no charge to attend but donations are graciously accepted.
This is also the time of year when we welcome our new crew of summer interpreters. This year we have five smiling faces to greet you and lead you on a tour of Medalta. We'll introduce them later in this email.
There's lots happening elsewhere in Medicine Hat as well. There is a new restaurant and ceramic gallery downtown, a wonderful exhibition of new work at the Esplanade by Les Manning, an event by Medicine Hat's Folk Music club and, as always, excellent movies at the Monarch Theatre. Information on events beyond Medalta are found on the left-hand side of this newsletter so have a look and if anything grabs you, be sure to take it in.
Thanks for reading. Let's get to it.
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SIX COURSES OF WINE
Over the past few years, we have been talking a lot about construction, rejuvenation and restoration of Medalta into an industrial museum and contemporary ceramic arts centre. With the latest flurry of construction nearing completion, we have now started to turn our attention to programming. There are three main areas which will receive our attention over the next few years: Education, Artistic and Community. It is one thing to have a museum and arts centre in your community. But we believe that one of the main roles of our organization is to actively engage our community, provide dynamic education opportunities to our youth and introduce a global audience of ceramic artists to our community. To help us achieve all that, we are hosting our first annual fundraising event on Saturday, October 15. It will be a six course dinner with wine pairing. We will have a live auction ($1,000 reserve) and silent auction (50 items). We're happy to announce that this year's title sponsor is Rotary Clubs of Medicine Hat which means the event will be called "Rotary Black & White Gala, supporting the Historic Clay District." Event: Rotary Black & White Gala Dinner: Chef Brian Keyes, Cypress Club Wine: Paul Howe Liquor Tickets: $100 + GST (only 200 will be sold) Masters of Ceremony: Magic of Trevor Moore and Dr. Ken Sauer Auctioneer: Rick Porter as you can see, there's already quite a bit of community support behind this event so we're hoping that you will be able to attend. You can reserve your seat & table by contacting us at: (p) 403.529.1070 (e) quentin@medalta.org 
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SHAW CENTRE EVENTS
There are a few things happening this month that we think you'll be interested in. We host a lot of low-profile events which have become increasingly well-attended over time. Part of that is due to event-specific invitations which we email to people. If you would like to be added to that list, just let us know by replying to this email. On May 19, we are hosting artists' talks for the artists visiting us through the month of May. May 22 is the second round of artists' talks (different artists this time) and an open house for the Shaw Centre.  | | Work by 2010 Medalta Artist Carole Epp |
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FLOWER ARRANGING
Just this past Saturday we hosted our first flower arranging workshop, lead by one of our favourite floral shops - Fresh Flowers & Gifts. Interest was actually so high that we sold out the first workshop and added a second one on the same day. When that one sold out, we created a waiting list and are hoping to add more throughout the summer. There were lots of positive comments and everyone was able to take a very nice bouquet of flowers home for Mother's Day. Our next workshops are in the fall: Pickling and Bean Recipes, both taught by Joanne Smith, one of the authors of the Big Cook Cookbook. Those are also filling up so if you are interested, please register. 
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THE DIG - UPDATE
It has been a few months since we updated you on The Dig and we have some fairly exciting news to share.
For you newer subscribers, here's a recap: In October, we welcomed an Industrial Archaeologist to Medalta. Her name is Talva Jacobson and she lead a major excavation of Medalta's Kiln Room. We were reasonably sure that the foundations of three beehive kilns were still under foot but were not completely sure.
What Talva found when she stripped away the concrete and soil was even more exciting than we could have thought. She did indeed find the foundations of three beehive kilns, along with part of a foundation of a much newer tunnel kiln and a much smaller muffle (or test) kiln. It was definitely more than we expected.
That is very much the Cole's Notes version which should help bring you up to speed.
Now here's the update:
Talva's work at Medalta has actually gained national attention. This weekend (May 13 - 15), she will be in Edmonton leading a session at the 36th Archaeological Society of Alberta's Conference and Annual General Meeting and is following that up with a speaking engagement in Halifax at the 44th Annual Meeting of Canadian Archaeology Association of Canada, a meeting of the top Archaeologists in the country.
This is excellent news when you consider that prior to this project, Medalta was essentially unknown to this influential community.
Thanks to Talva's work, Medicine Hat may be on its way to becoming a base for other industrial arachaeologists. It is a relatively new field of study and Medicine Hat has an opportunity to be an important factor in its emergence.
And if that isn't enough excitement, we'll actually be able to finally share the fabulous photos we took throughout the excavation!
 | | Photo by Susan Knight, Visual Musings Photography |
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THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS!
In case you missed it, April 10 - 16 was National Volunteer Week. It is a celebration of those who donate their time and are actively involved in their community.
During the week, we hosted a volunteer appreciation event in the Shaw Centre studios and ran an ad in the Medicine Hat News thanking our volunteers for all their hard work. The event was well-attended and gave many people a chance to experience Medalta from a different point of view than they were used to.
The ad carries on our storytelling theme. The subjects this time were Jim Marshall and Jack Forbes, two of the founding board members of the Friends of Medalta Society. As 2011 is the 25th Anniversary of the Society, we felt it was fitting. Have a look:
Ad Text
This has to be the ultimate volunteer story. In the mid-1970's, these two men - Jim Marshall on the left, Jack Forbes on the right - sat under a cottonwood tree, looking at the abandoned, dilapidated Medalta Potteries factory.
The two men dreamed about someday restoring Medalta as a living, working museum and arts centre. What a crazy idea!
Well, when they realized they couldn't shake the idea from their own heads, they actually got to work. These two men (Jim will still tell you he was "Number Two" on the scene to Jack) helped found the volunteer-based Friends of Medalta Society and led the uphill battle of saving a derelict property when no one else cared.
This year, we're celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Friends of Medalta Society which really is a celebration of their ambition and (probably) stubborn-ness since they were the catalysts for the entire Historic Clay District project. These days, it doesn't seem quite so crazy. We owe that to the work of all our volunteers.
And they're not the only ones. We have many other volunteers who contribute an awful lot. So to all our volunteers, past and present, thank you. We really appreciate all that you do.
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SUMMER INTERPRETERS Summer is a pretty busy time and we're always relieved to welcome our new summer interpreters to the team. This year is no different. There are five students working with us this year. Two are returnees from last year, two wear the most colourful shoes you can imagine, one is a Roller Derby girl, one is a visual arts student in Edmonton and another is an international student from China. Lindsay Binkley Lindsay is one of our returnees from last year. She is studying Education and grew up in Eastend, Saskatchewan (home of Scotty the T-Rex). When she's not taking you on an excellent tour of Medalta, she usually likes to read her brand new Kindle. 
Ciarra Glass Ciarra is the other returning student and owner of the brightest green shoes you have ever seen. She doesn't wear them every day so hopefully when you come for a tour, she has them on. It makes a good tour even better. She's a Hatter by birth and is home for the summer from Dalhousie in Halifax. 
Lindsay Woods Lindsay is our Roller Derby girl. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Roller Derby but it's a pretty awesome sport, played on roller skates. If you're interested, Lindsay can probably tell you all about it. 
Carissa Brilz Carissa is our Edmontonian visual arts student and owner of the brightest orange shoes you've ever seen. Like Ciarra, she is a Hatter from birth and is home for the summer. Even though it is her first year at Medalta, she has already proven her ability to visualize solutions to a variety of problems - ridiculous and otherwise! 
Reebus Liu Reebus is the name of our Chinese international student. He has spent a few years in Canada already and has become a part of Medicine Hat's community. Like Carissa, he has proven his ability to solve problems and contribute to the portions of summer interpreters' protocol. 
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GETTING HERE
We're sorry about all the construction at Medalta. But the way we see it, it's short-term pain for long-term gain. And we're almost through most of it. All winter, the main road (Medalta Ave) to Medalta has been shut down. This spring it is going to be paved which will be very nice. In the meantime, there's a detour. Now, the detour wasn't too bad. Some people got lost but it didn't seem to discourage too many people. However, last week more road construction began. About two blocks' worth. This lead to another detour. Oh boy ... I thought about just describing it to you but both detours have basically compounded the problem, making it exponentially harder to find and about as difficult to explain the route. So what I've done is gone into Google Maps and drawn a map from the Medicine Hat Lodge (a pretty easily identifiable landmark in our city) to Medalta. Have a look. Don't let it discourage you, we usually congratulate people who can navigate their way through it all. |
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KIDS SUMMER CLAY CAMPS
Every summer we offer clay camps for kids. They are offered through the Medicine Hat College's Continuing Studies program. Registration is limited so if you would like to register someone, please contact Medicine Hat College. CLAY MAGICClay Magic is a class where children learn and practice many handbuilding techniques in a fun & supportive atmosphere. - For ages 8 - 11 years old Session 1:- Where: Shaw Centre (Medalta Potteries). 713 Medalta Ave SE - When: 9:00am - Noon, Monday July 4 - Friday July 8 - Cost: $100.00 + GST Session 2:- Where: Shaw Centre (Medalta Potteries). 713 Medalta Ave SE - When: 9:00am - Noon, Monday August 8 - Friday August 12 - Cost: $100.00 + GST TEEN WHEELUncover the mysteries of the potters' wheel in this fun week of hands-on "throwing." Create pots or flatware under the guidance of an experienced instructor while learning new skills and making new friends. - For ages 12 - 17 years old Session 1:- Where: Shaw Centre (Medalta Potteries). 713 Medalta Ave SE - When: 1:00 - 4:00pm, Monday July 4 - Friday July 8 - Cost: $100.00 + GST Session 2:- Where: Shaw Centre (Medalta Potteries). 713 Medalta Ave SE - When: 1:00 - 4:00pm, Monday August 8 - Friday August 12 - Cost: $100.00 + GST Registration:Register for any of these sessions by contacting Medicine Hat College's Continuing Studies: 403.529.3844 or visit www.mhc.ab.ca/  |
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There's lots happening - not just at Medalta, but everywhere in Medicine Hat. We're excited about our programming and hope you'll be able to take in one of our workshops or events this year. As always, we are looking for more content for our newsletter. So if you have something specific you would like us to include, send it to us. Anything related to Western Canadian art and culture (specifically ceramics), Medicine Hat or industrial archaeology will be considered. And don't forget, if you're out and about, consider becoming a member of Medalta and take advantage of all the offers our friends have given you throughout the city. Thank you. Talk to you soon.
Quentin Randall
Medalta, in the Historic Clay District |
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