Deborah Fleming
I love working with people, with ideas, and with lines, colours and shapes on surfaces. I am recently retired from about forty years of off-and-on art teaching. During that time, I also ran a stained glass art studio, a small garden plant and design business, and had taken up watercolour and, recently, acrylic painting. I have been taking a few architecture classes out of interest at Dalhousie.
I started teaching junior and senior high art in 1978 in a small town in Alberta. Over the next ten years, I was on several curriculum committees for Alberta Education, completed a M.A. in Art Education, and, best of all met my husband, Bruce Smith. My teaching career was intermittent, from full time to substituting in Calgary and Victoria, to a year as a sessional at the U. of Calgary, and then to setting up small classes in my kitchen (The Kitchen Art Studio in Hubbards) and around the area. I volunteered vigorously to help create the art program at my son’s elementary school in Hubbards, which is when I met Jan Shilletto and several other wonderful artists. Eventually, I returned to ten years of full-time art teaching in New Germany with junior and senior high students. Full circle!
I designed stained glass windows for people across Canada for about twenty years, from 1978 to 2001. I worked mainly by commission, creating works about 5 sq. ft. to 30 sq. ft. My largest work was a juried competition for the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie, AB., to design, create and install 140 sq. ft. in the hospital chapel, in 1984. I also created autonomous panels for art shows in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Moncton, PEI, and Truro.
I am a lifelong gardener, having had parents and grandparents passionate about plants. I had a small business for about ten years growing plants from seed and selling them, helping people with garden questions, and designing garden spaces. My pride and joy was the backyard garden I was hired to create for Victoria Hall in Halifax. Not only did the garden get cooperatively grown by all the ladies living at the Hall, but I worked there once a week for several years, helping to maintain the space, and visiting the people and that wonderful building.
After “retiring” from stained glass, the idea of painting became, again, a main interest. With tremendous painters for parents, and an inspiring association with Jan Shilletto and the gang of afternoon artists, I began painting in the early “aughts”. Mostly watercolour, but recently I am trying out acrylic, as well. I have been able to sign up again to the AAC and I am very excited by the thought of working alongside so many unique and interesting people.
Though the medium changes, the idea for me is the same: get involved with intriguing small things, and make sure these beings get lots of special attention, so they can grow up to be sturdy and vibrant, and off on their own adventures!
Bruce and I came from Alberta, and we have been in the St. Margaret’s Bay area of Nova Scotia since 1988. Our son Leith was born in 1993, and he is very much a harbour boy. We all appreciate the wonderful ocean views daily.
Contact:
I started teaching junior and senior high art in 1978 in a small town in Alberta. Over the next ten years, I was on several curriculum committees for Alberta Education, completed a M.A. in Art Education, and, best of all met my husband, Bruce Smith. My teaching career was intermittent, from full time to substituting in Calgary and Victoria, to a year as a sessional at the U. of Calgary, and then to setting up small classes in my kitchen (The Kitchen Art Studio in Hubbards) and around the area. I volunteered vigorously to help create the art program at my son’s elementary school in Hubbards, which is when I met Jan Shilletto and several other wonderful artists. Eventually, I returned to ten years of full-time art teaching in New Germany with junior and senior high students. Full circle!
I designed stained glass windows for people across Canada for about twenty years, from 1978 to 2001. I worked mainly by commission, creating works about 5 sq. ft. to 30 sq. ft. My largest work was a juried competition for the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Grande Prairie, AB., to design, create and install 140 sq. ft. in the hospital chapel, in 1984. I also created autonomous panels for art shows in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Moncton, PEI, and Truro.
I am a lifelong gardener, having had parents and grandparents passionate about plants. I had a small business for about ten years growing plants from seed and selling them, helping people with garden questions, and designing garden spaces. My pride and joy was the backyard garden I was hired to create for Victoria Hall in Halifax. Not only did the garden get cooperatively grown by all the ladies living at the Hall, but I worked there once a week for several years, helping to maintain the space, and visiting the people and that wonderful building.
After “retiring” from stained glass, the idea of painting became, again, a main interest. With tremendous painters for parents, and an inspiring association with Jan Shilletto and the gang of afternoon artists, I began painting in the early “aughts”. Mostly watercolour, but recently I am trying out acrylic, as well. I have been able to sign up again to the AAC and I am very excited by the thought of working alongside so many unique and interesting people.
Though the medium changes, the idea for me is the same: get involved with intriguing small things, and make sure these beings get lots of special attention, so they can grow up to be sturdy and vibrant, and off on their own adventures!
Bruce and I came from Alberta, and we have been in the St. Margaret’s Bay area of Nova Scotia since 1988. Our son Leith was born in 1993, and he is very much a harbour boy. We all appreciate the wonderful ocean views daily.
Contact:
Artists
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OPEN STUDIO DAY
EVERYONE WELCOME Please note our Studio Days are on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
We meet: 10am - 4pm the last Monday of each month between September and June.
There is a short business meeting at noon. (Note: there is a small drop-in fee for non-members) Ocean Swells Community Centre 2726 Hwy 329 Northwest Cove, NS B0J 1T0 |
