Fernwood University is proud to be presenting Roberta Martell, former Executive Director of Fernwood NRG and current Executive Director of the Nanaimo Family Life Association of BC.

She will speak about how to engage the dreams, resources, and talents of our neighbours and foster new links between them, as well as, how to take action in response to neighbourhood issues, ideas, and initiatives.

She is a passionate, talented, and engaging speaker who is guaranteed leave you feeling inspired. Join the conversation at Fernwood U on Tuesday, February 21st at the Cornerstone Cafe.

- Cheers!

cover: Good Deeds & Good Health Go Hand in Hand at Fernwood Yoga Den

>> Lilian Sue

Ever noticed how yoga in many studios in Victoria is offered in tandem with pilates and martial arts, and it always seems to draw crowds of super athletic and fit, young men and women? Where can you find a yoga class for kids and teens, or parents with families, or people living with disabilities? Read more…

feature: Two Weeks of Wonder

 >> Mark Dusseault

Coming soon to Fernwood, the Belfry announces its line up for the 2012 SPARK Festival.

Three years ago the Belfry transformed its March programming when it introduced its annual SPARK Festival. Prior to SPARK the company presented three shows in its Studio space over six weeks, and while the work was first-rate, the programming lacked focus and a community feel. Read more…

mark your calendar: Reeling in Bullying

>> Victoria Community Centre Network

New film festival encourages youth to get creative with an anti-bullying message.

Victoria’s Community Centre Network is launching a new film contest designed to address the serious issue of bullying. Youth groups at each community centre will make a 30 second PSA that creatively conveys an anti-bullying message. All entries will be screened on February 24th, 2012 and reviewed by a panel which will include local media personalities. Read more…

Our 2011 Annual Report is also now available. You can find a print copy inside this Village Vibe or read it online here.

The Village Vibe is always looking for contributors and submissions, whether stories, photos, original art, even poetry and short fiction. The single guiding theme is that your submission must relate to Fernwood. Please drop us a line at editor@fernwoodnrg.ca to pitch a story or to get guidelines for submissions.

Happy reading

You are invited to the opening for this show on Thursday, February 9th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at the Cornerstone Cafe.

Bred in the Bone

The latest series of paintings by Kristina Campbell have been inspired by her recent travels to Denmark. Campbell was born in Canada to parents who emigrated from Denmark in the 1960’s. Surprised by her fascination with all things Danish, she has spent a great deal of time recently in Denmark. While friends and family are certainly part of the draw, she has felt a huge affinity with the relics of the Viking period and history, spending a great deal of her time visiting museums and researching the history of the Vikings and their culture and mythology. The imagery of the Vikings, the writing in Runes, and the strength of the Viking culture has all inspired this latest series. Numerous trips to the Viking graveyard at Lindholm’s Hoje in Northern Jutland have also been the source of video footage for Campbell’s video work.

In this series, Bred in the Bone, Campbell continues her work on wooden cradle panels, carving the Runes and imagery into the surface, and using oil to paint and stain the surface with her favorite palette of red and gold. The paintings are immediately identifiable as hers, and yet the subject matter is a complete departure from her former nudes.

Looking for meaning in the symbols of a lost culture, allowing the imagery to meld with her distinctive sensibility as a painter, Campbell evokes the past, draws strength and power from it, while simultaneously placing it in the sensual space and time of the present.

Bio

Graduating from University of Victoria in 2009 (BFA Honours) Kristina Campbell is a Victoria, BC based multimedia artist. Recent work has been featured in exhibitions at the Royal BC Museum, Open Space, Martin Batchelor and now at the Cornerstone. Working primarily in video or oil on panel, in either medium her work is sensual, quietly powerful and very personal. Her award winning feature-length documentary Searching For Emily formed part of The Other Emily exhibition at the Royal British Columbia Museum in 2011. Recent oil on panel paintings will be showing at the Cornerstone through February, and Campbell’s recent video work will be shown  in an up-coming  solo exhibition  at Martin Batchelor Gallery in May 2012. A strong believer in supporting the communities that support her, Campbell frequently creates videos for non-profit organizations such as Women’s Transition House, Victoria Riding for the Disabled, or the Canadian Paralympic Soccer Association to assist them with their promotion and community education roles. Kristina Campbell serves on the Board of Directors at Media-net, a local member-run video co-operative. Her work has been shown and collected throughout North America, Denmark and Bhutan.

>> Margaret Hantiuk

The Fernwood Mapping Project is underway. We have a website linked up to UVic’s Community Mapping Center. Fernwoodians may either visit the site, or be actively involved in the mapping of our neighbourhood by setting up a username and password.

It’s easy: go to  www.mapping.uvic.ca/fernwood/  Add your favourite spots to our map! 

We also would like to record conversations with local seniors who once lived in, or are long-time residents of Fernwood. To do this we have an audio recording device that can then upload the conversations and stories to our website.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, call Dorothy at: 250-385-7692, or email her at: dotter@seaside.net

Our goal is to create an active Fernwood map online at this website with many layers and the recorded stories, and to then publish a paper community map of our neighbourhood.

The Fernwood Mapping Project is underway. We have a website linked up to UVic’s Community Mapping Center. Fernwoodians may either visit the site, or be actively involved in the mapping of our neighbourhood by setting up a username and password.

It’s easy: go to  www.mapping.uvic.ca/fernwood/  Add your favourite spots to our map!

We also would like to record conversations with local seniors who once lived in, or are long-time residents of Fernwood. To do this we have an audio recording device that can then upload the conversations and stories to our website.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, call Dorothy at: 250-385-7692, or email her at: dotter@seaside.net

Our goal is to create an active Fernwood map online at this website with many layers and the recorded stories, and to then publish a paper community map of our neighbourhood.

Susinn McFarlen in "on the edge" by Michele Riml / Photos by Emily Cooper

A new play was born right here in Fernwood at the Belfry Theater. Never before seen "on the edge" is a captivating play by critically acclaimed playwright Michele Riml.

"on the edge looks at the lives of three women in today’s complicated world, each very different from the others and each caught in a labyrinth created by society’s expectations and their own personal challenges.

The three women – a fashion addict, cheekily overwhelmed by labels, finances and aging; the police officer who uses her rough and tumble sense of humour to function in a hyper-masculine world; and the housewife learning yoga who is trying to find a balance between her inner life and the demands of her needy family life – each bring deep empathy and great humour to the stage."

- Belfry Theater

Starring Susinn McFarlen

Director Andrew McIlroy Set Designer Kevin McAllister Costume Designer Erin Macklem Lighting Designer Bryan Kenney Sound Designer Noah Drew Stage Manager Kim Charleen Smith

Showing January 24 to February 26, 2012. Get tickets here.

Monday, January 30th at 3:00pm:

Fernwood Neighbourhood Resource Group & Vic West Community Association are excited to be collaborating to present Nicole Foss at the Vic West Community Centre, 521 Craigflower Road.

Admission is by donation, there is free parking and there will be tea and coffee by donation.

This talk will be about the Ongoing Financial Crisis and You.

Tuesday, January 31st at 7:30pm:

Nicole Foss will be speaking as part of our lecture series Fernwood University at the Cornerstone Cafe, 1301 Gladstone Avenue.

She will be presenting her view of the big picture, focusing on finance as the time-frame is shortest. She will discuss aspects of the Canadian situation in addition to the global picture. We will see the development of a major economic depression over the next few years, with a crash of the money supply and therefore purchasing power. The burden of debt has become too large to service and that debt is about to deflate, with enormous consequences. We need to know how to preserve our freedom of action during this period.

Free!

Learn more about Nicole Foss at theautomaticearth.blogspot.com

Even if it is snowing and you can’t leave your house, you can get good food delivered to you (delivery is a $3 charge). The food comes direct from local and regional farmers and/or local purveyors. In keeping with the rhythm of the seasons, June to October we offer minimum 90% local and regional with November to May a minimum (but often more than) 50% of local and regional.

With the new bi-monthly service, Good Food Box is looking for enthusiastic, food-security loving volunteers who can think spatially and efficiently pack food into Good Food Boxes. It is an asset if volunteers like tasty food since after their shift they can take some home with them.

Learn more here:

Video by Jayce Hawkins

If you are interested in volunteering, contact Sushil Saini at (250) 893-7635 or sushil@thegoodfoodbox.ca

Make sure you get in touch by January 20th, 2012.

Speaker: Kim Fowler, Sustainability Planning & Integration Specialist, www.SustainabilityMakesCents.com

The presentation will cover some of the critical sustainability issues facing urban municipalities in Canada, including a massive infrastructure deficit, destabilizing climate change, and an ageing population, which will require communities to ‘live within their means’ for the first time in 2 centuries.  Come join in the discussion of community sustainability.

Kim is a municipal sustainability expert with a proven record of successfully implementing sustainability in several municipalities. Her design of the Sustainability Initiative for the City of Port Coquitlam integrated 12 land development activities from the corporate strategic level through the budget to individual projects.  The Initiative won a 2006 Smart Growth BC award.  She project managed the development concept and land sale of the Victoria Dockside Green lands, which were awarded the highest LEED^TM Platinum point total in the world for the first two development phases.  The Dockside project has won over 20 sustainability awards.

Article/Book Recommendations:

1. City of Victoria budget
2. City of Victoria, Financial Sustainability Policy
3. Open Victoria, News, Victoria’s Budget Crisis
4. ICLEI White Paper, Financing the Resilient City:  A Demand Driven Approach to Development, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation
5. Paul Hawken, You Are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring
6. United Nations, Our Common Future, From One Earth to One World
7. National Round Table on Environment and Economy, Paying the Price:  The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada
8. Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, Climate Change and Food Security in British Columbia 
9. Professor Ann Dale, Royal Roads University, A Policy Agenda for Canadian Municipalities
10. Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Ahead of the Wave:  A Guide to Sustainable Asset Management for Canadian Municipalities
11. Asset Management BC – various best management practices for infrastructure, including model policy, case studies, roadmap guide
12. Todd Litman, University of Victoria, Yes, We Can Have a Healthy Environment and Economic Development: Reconciling Conflicting Planning Objectives

Please join us for his opening party, on Thursday, December 15th from 7-10pm in the cafe.

Curated and written by Jaime Lynn Clifton

Nic Vandergugten, a Victoria-based printmaker, offers a contemporary approach to the traditional practice of linograph and block printing. Born in Victoria’s historical Chinatown, Vandergugten spent his early childhood surrounded by a developing art scene that resided within the immense loft apartments above Chinese grocers, cafes and restaurants. This distinct abode exposed him to such artists as Louise Merino, Darcy Gould, Harry Shafer, and his own father, Bert Vandergugten. He is now in the midst of returning to his roots and reestablishing himself as a Chinatown resident.

Vandergugten’s integration of craft traditions not only enable him to utilize techniques pioneered by masters in printmaking and illustration, such as Albrecht Dürer, but also provide him with a medium in which he can establish a contemporary language that echoes artistic traditions. His interest in Japanese woodblock printers, Naoko Matsubara and Shikō Munakata, also convey his desire to utilize elemental printmaking techniques.

Vandergugten’s sketches and prints present a consciousness of pictorial structure and the inherent framed boundaries. His work simultaneously investigates the connections and disconnections between the inner and outer world. His striking gestural aesthetic is reminiscent of the highly emotive and exposed work of the Expressionist artists, Edvard Much and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Through his work, Vandergugten offers a high degree of emotion and honesty that subsequently facilitates his viewers with diverse personal or shared experiences.

His recent works include a continual visual documentation of Victoria’s Johnson Street Bridge, known as the ‘Blue Bridge’. Through sketches and prints, Vandergugten is able to present the life and death of this iconic landmark through expressively inked imagery. He is currently developing a series of plates illustrating the personal account of a Nanaimo based gold miner who traveled through the Yukon during the early 20th century. His work will be exhibited at the Cornerstone Café in late December 2011 along with the Burnaby Library, in Vancouver, in mid 2012.