Top of the County

Rednersville Road Art Tour returns

The road meandering across the northwest boundary of the County is home to a wealth of talented artists. Since 2008, their work and creativity has been showcased by the Rednersville Road Art tour, which returned this past weekend after a two-year absence due to Covid restrictions. With 16 galleries or studios and 28 participating artists, there was something for very nearly any artistic taste, from ceramics and fibre to photography, paintings or mosaics. The fine opening day weather on Saturday brought a steady stream of visitors and some very welcome sales for the artists. Quilter Linda Hargest was very happy to see the return of the art tour. “I’ve been on every tour but the very first one, and it’s a great group of people. We work very well together from one end of the road to the other,” she said. She has been making quilts since 1988, and her designs run from traditional patterns to complex geometrics. “I love the colours, I love the designs. I love putting things together, and picking colours and matching them.”

(L-R) Andrea Varangu with guest artist Colleen Green at Varangu’s studio during the Rednersville Road Art Tour.

Andrea Varangu works in oils and dry pastels, and this was her fifth year as an artist on the tour. “I’ve been more focused as an artist for the past 10 years when I moved to the County. Before that I did teach art, but I didn’t have as much time to do my own art,” she said. “I’m inspired by the visual; I like that fine observation of what’s happening with the light. I love this art tour. It’s a very busy tour, and there are so many people who come out and visit us, and it’s just nice to be part of a community of artists.” Sharing Varangu’s studio was guest artist Colleen Green, who works with encaustic—melted beeswax mixed with damar resin and coloured by pigments. “Every stroke of the brush you have to heat it with a heat gun. Everything is always melting and kind of moving, so you’re not really sure of what you’re going to get,” she said.

Prior to working in encaustic, which she started in 2008, she did life drawing, and way prior to that she started her art journey as a seven-year-old when her mother let her draw on the walls of one closet. Like a number of other artists on the tour, Green developed her innate talents and is a mostly self-taught artist who puts a lot of her passion and creativity into her work.

Saroya Tinker is self-taught artist who uses her painting as a way to cope with an eating disorder. She is a professional hockey player with the Premier Hockey Federation (formerly the National Women’s Hockey League) and plays defence for the Toronto Six. “I started painting different nude body figures, different shapes and sizes, and it helped me in some ways recover, but it also shows that all bodies are beautiful,” she said. “I see my body change all the time, just being a female athlete, whether I’m fluctuating in-season or out of season, and I was always very frustrated and not happy with the way I looked. And one day, I figured why not put my body on a canvas and

make it beautiful, and that’s exactly what I did, and now I see it in different shapes and sizes, and I hope everybody can see themselves in my art.” Many of her paintings are self-portraits, but she has also done some commissioned works. This was her first time on the Rednersville Road Art Tour, as a guest of Patty Djan, and she said it’s been a great experience. “I love the whole vibe. Having people come into our space, and welcome them and show them our work is amazing, and I’m so glad so many people are coming out to support this.” As a professional athlete, Tinker is featured in the documentary film Black Ice about the effects of racism in hockey at all levels of play.