Youkie Stagg < Back Originally Published On: January 1, 2016 Originally Published By: Haliburton Echo Atmo-Sphere Written By: Youkie Stagg When broken down to its origins, the word “atmosphere” is “atmo” which means vapour and “sphere” which is the same our modern definition. The sculpture was inspired by the theme “secret space.” “Atmo-sphere” is a spherical shape that creates a secret enclosure for quiet thoughts and reflection within the Sculpture Forest. The sculpture is made of granite stones, cement, Western cedar, and polished granite. It features a hidden archway, a quote from the poet Rumi written on the floor, and an oculus in the roof inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Like the purpose of traditional oculi, the oculus of “Atmo-sphere” allows for light and air to enter the space, merging the outdoor and indoors. The striking physical appearance of the piece becomes secondary to the incredible feeling of being within the ‘secret space’ and the amplification of voices reverberating off of the walls. John MacKinnon, the creator of the work, is an artist from Nelson, BC. The Sculpture Forest offers free guided tours in July and August each Tuesday from 10-11:30 am and a shorter ‘Curator Selection” tour on Wednesday from 12:10 – 12:50. Meet at the kiosk in the Fleming College parking lot. < Previous Article Next Article >

Tucked into the forest lie three Art Huts with unique art installations within each. Discover S. Demers' cabinet of curiorities! < All Events Art Hut Installation: The Mystery Shack Tucked into the forest lie three Art Huts with unique art installations within each. Discover S. Demers' cabinet of curiorities! Wednesday, March 1, 2023 Friday, June 30, 2023 Address: Haliburton Sculpture Forest, College Drive, Haliburton, ON, Canada More About the Installation The Mystery Shack is a captivating exploration of the intersection between art, nature, and the surreal. Reminiscent of an historic Cabinet of Curiosities—a curated collection of objects that represent moments in time, as well as the exotic interests of its collector—this installation challenges our perceptions of what is natural and what is real. The works showcased are designed to create a sense of intrigue and wonder—drawing the audience into a world that is at once familiar and yet, strangely foreign. By featuring animals with bizarre and fantastical characteristics, this installation aims to explore the boundaries of our imagination and challenge our understanding of the natural world. Can we think beyond our industrialized and digitized present to a future where all creatures can co-exist without having to be placed in a museum or zoo, in order to appreciate the wonders of our earthly paradise? Photo Gallery: < Previous Next >

2019 < All Sculptures 2019 Downtown Haliburton Sculpture Exhibition $2,800.00 Girl at the Fountain Tonya Hart "I was born in Canada and received my Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University in Toronto. Over the past two decades I have participated in numerous solo, group and public art exhibitions, notably with the Canadian Sculpture Centre, National Capital Commission and New York Arts Collective 4heads. My art is often inspired by nature and by the science intent on deciphering it. I seek the patterns and connections which broaden our understanding of the natural world and evolve our definition of nature and aesthetics. My recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2018 and a sculpture installation at Ontario Place for the Light Exhibition 2018-19." Artist Contact Information info@tonyahart.com

Angus Sullivan < Back Originally Published On: July 18, 2017 Originally Published By: Haliburton Echo Wind Dervish Written By: Angus Sullivan Work created by John McKinnon in 2017. There have been a number of new additions to the Haliburton Sculpture Forest this summer. As part of the celebration of Canada, Ontario, and Dysart’s 150, four artists, from around the world and across the country, were invited to Haliburton to take part in the 2017 Sculpture Symposium. Each sculptor was charged with creating a new piece for the Sculpture Forest out of a large block of limestone based on the theme “Carved on the Canadian Shield.” John McKinnon, one of four sculptors, created “Wind Dervish”. For John, trips across the Canadian Shield conjure up images of stone, wind, and timelessness. Over thousands of years, the stone that never seems to change is picked up, microscopic by microscopic layer and carried off by the wind. The wind, which shows itself in the things it moves and shapes, is an expression of time. John wanted this piece to think outside of time. Thousands of years have been compressed into a moment, and the layer of stone has risen up and is dancing like a Dervish in the wind. All four sculptors began with the same stone and the same task, but each came up with a unique and creative vision for their sculptures. Come to the Grand Opening of “Carved on the Canadian Shield” on Tuesday, July 25th at 5:00 – 6:00 at the Sculpture Forest for a reception, dedication and audio presentations by the artists about the new sculptures. For a guided walk through Haliburton’s history along the Head Lake Trail to the Grand Opening, meet at 4:00 pm at the Rails End Gallery, 23 York Street, Haliburton. Return transportation will be provided. The Haliburton Sculpture Forest is located in Glebe Park on 297 College Drive. It is open dawn to dusk with free guided tours in July and August on Tuesdays, 10:00 – 11:30 am, and on Wednesdays at 12:10 – 12:50pm. Meet at the information kiosk next to the parking lot at Fleming College. You can use the Sculpture Forest app (download PocketSights and search for Haliburton) or visit www.haliburtonsculptureforest.ca to learn more about the sculptures. < Previous Article Next Article >

Jared Tait All Sculptures Bawaajigan - To Dream Number on Map 43 Artist Jared Tait Material Panels, outdoor mural paint Installation Date August 17, 2024 Learn About the Artist Indigenous artist, Jared Tait, was our artist in residence, August 12th -16th 2024. Community members were invited to participate in this community engagement art experience at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. Over 80 community members participated and learned about the woodland style of painting and Indigenous stories. Under the direction of Jared, community members painted the figures, on to the panels over the course of the week. The central figure, Nanabush, stands high, in amongst the woodland creatures. This collection of figures represents the story of Nanabush and the owl. Nanabush had lost his connection between this world and the spiritual world. The owl saw him in his despair and offered his eyes to Nanabush so that he could find his way again. The yellow represents the colour of the owl's eyes and can be seen on all of the creatures. This story represents the gift the owl gave the to Anishinaabe people, to be able to see the connections. The line work on all of the figures represents connections and the interconnectiveness of everything. The animals in this installation are very common in all of Jared's art. The kingfisher represents his grandmother and her clan. Jared used purple and lavender colours in this painting because his grandmother was always wearing purple. The circle in the centre of the kingfisher represents a wampum shell. In the centre of the loon, the divied circle reperesnts the miigis shell, which people would wear on their necklaces or ceremonial outfits, honouring the connections. There are two halves on this shell which represent the duality of day and night, and the connectiveness of this world and the spiritual world. The bear usually takes up a lot of space on Jared's canvases. It represents healing to Jared. The beaver shaped the land for the people and they relied on the beaver for many things. More Photos Previous Next

Thuja occidentalis < Back Eastern White Cedar Ojibwe Name: giizhigaa'aandak Scientific Name: Thuja occidentalis Significance in Ojibwe Cultures: What happens when you use cedar tea to bathe? It purges your lymph vessels and nodes, relieving your skin of this constant slow leech of toxins and garbage that is slowly secreted onto the surface of your skin which is the cause of a ton of problems. How to Identify the Leaves: "Cones from the eastern white cedar are 7 to 12 millimetres long and grow in clumps of 5 or 6 pairs. Small scaly leaves cover the tree’s fan-shaped twigs and are a yellowish-green colour. The bark of the eastern white cedar is thin and shiny when the tree is young, but separates into flat narrow strips as the tree gets older. White-tailed deer eat the twigs of the eastern white cedar during the winter." Sources: Image: https://www.ontario.ca/page/eastern-white-cedar How to Identify Tree: https://www.ontario.ca/page/eastern-white-cedar < Back Next >

Angus Sullivan < Back Originally Published On: July 4, 2017 Originally Published By: Haliburton Echo Voyage Written By: Angus Sullivan Work created by Mary Ellen Farrow in 2017. There have been a number of new additions to the Haliburton Sculpture Forest this summer. As part of the celebration of Canada, Ontario, and Dysart 150, four artists, from around the world and across the country, were invited to Haliburton to take part in the 2017 Sculpture Symposium. Each sculptor was charged with creating a new piece for the Sculpture Forest out of a large block of limestone based on the theme “Carved on the Canadian Shield.” The canoe is a fundamental part of the history of the Canadian Shield. It was created and used by the indigenous people, (and adopted by early European settlers) as an efficient means of transportation, exploration, trade and commerce. The canoe is still a part of our culture today for sport, recreation and a way to travel to the wild areas of the country. The sculpture is a voyage through time, space and across cultures. It is a bit of an enigma, seeing a fully packed canoe in the forest, but that is part of the fun of the piece. The way it is situated you can imagine it on the bank of a river or travelling through the rapids. Mary Ellen wanted the sculpture to be interactive, for children to be able to climb into it and play. You can come see “Voyage” at the sculpture forest now, along with the three other new additions. Make sure to also check out the grand opening on July 25th. The Haliburton Sculpture Forest is located in Glebe Park on 297 College Drive. This unique collection of 36 sculptures by Canadian and International artists is always open to the public for your own discovery. Free guided tours occur on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in July and August. You can also use the sculpture forest app (download PocketSights and search for Haliburton) or visit the website to learn more about the sculptures. www.haliburtonsculptureforest.ca < Previous Article Next Article >

William Lishman All Sculptures Kennisis: Horse and Rider Number on Map 19 Artist William Lishman Material Milled Steel Installation Date October 1, 2008 Learn About the Artist The theme of Expo 86 in Vancouver was transportation and communications. There were three plazas that focused on various forms of transportation; land, sea and air. My concept won the commission for the centerpiece sculpture for the Land Transportation plaza. My thoughts (inspired by Terry Fox and Steve Fonyo) were that muscle power has been the mainstay of our transportation in human history. Legs have carried humankind around the planet since our forbearers crawled from the sea, and who knows when we first started riding various animals. The horse more than any other animal has carried us for many millennia. The overall piece was comprised of many elements depicting the devolution of the wheel. It started at the bottom out of a traffic jam as if wheeled vehicles had been caught in some tornado-like blender, and were torn apart in an upward spiral of varying colours around a central cone to a height of 86 feet. The vehicle parts re-congealed into muscle powered transportation. A celebration of legs! Aside from the wheeled vehicles at the bottom, it was comprised of 55 figures which gradually diminished in size as they spiraled skyward giving the piece a forced perspective and making it appear much higher than its 86 feet. The horse sculpture was in the second step down in scale, just a bit smaller than life size. It represented the history of equestrian transportation depicting a North American aboriginal rider as one with the horse in mind and muscle. The segments that are welded together to make the sculpture are off cuts from a metal stamping plant that made parts for General Motors in Oshawa. The overall piece was entitled Transcending the Traffic. The sculpture was purchased by Janis Parker and donated to Fleming College which has provided the sculpture on permanent loan to the Haliburton Sculpture Forest. Janis chose the name Kennisis, the name of a racehorse owned by Gary Vasey and Don Finn, to honour the Vasey and Finn families. More Photos Previous Next

2025 < All Sculptures 2025 Downtown Haliburton Sculpture Exhibition Contact Artist for Pricing Botanical Canoe Garrett Gilbert Botanical Canoe Originally created as part of a performance art piece in which the artist portaged a carved canoe along forgotten portage trails. This canoes has been installed as lighting features and re-imagined as an opulent hanging chandeliers, like a Moroccan pierce-work light with a Canadian twist. Garrett Gilbart Garrett is a professional sculptor from Douro, east of Peterborough Ontario Initially studying welding and fabrication at Sir Sandford Fleming College, before receiving their BFA from NSCAD University in Halifax, and briefly studied abroad at the Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie in Amsterdam. Garrett describes themself as “a carver of unnatural materials, instead of wood and stone, I carve discarded tools, car parts and other salvaged steel objects collected from the forests and scrapyards of rural Ontario”. Each piece is hand carved with a handheld plasma cutter, a welding torch used for melting and cutting steel. Often mounted on a computer controlled track system, Garrett’s skillful manipulation allows them to carve a variety of materials that are beyond the capabilities of even the most advanced robotics or lasers. Through the imaginative use of a precision fabrication tool the artist unlocks a dimension of creativity that cannot be achieved through the technical expertise of the engineer.Focusing on tools, their work explores the faded aura of utility and labour these tactile objects exude. Broken or discarded tools retain their symbolic dimension, as receptacles of personal narratives and cultural values, even after their initial purpose is spent.Additionally offering to create commissioned work using heirloom tools for individual clients to explore their shared history and relation to labour, craft and the tool object. Tools are often handed down well beyond their utilitarian function.The main body of work consists of salvaged metal hand tools, car parts and other steel objects intricately hand cut with historical textile patterns and motifs gleaned from the Arts and Craft movement. This practice is similarly grounded in a commitment to skilled craftsmanship, history and the accessibility of arts that the founders of the Arts and Craft movement were dedicated to. The most recent body of work is influenced by the silhouetted shapes of dead wildflowers over the long rural winter, these botanical forms are carefully re created, cut into the salvaged steel of object he finds in the forests, fields and local barns. The native floral elements spring from the steel of the found objects, merging the contexts of their existence within themselves. These objects range in size from a single screwdriver, to a full plow overgrown with a variety of local native wildflowers.This diverse body of work explores a range of relatable experiences with a dense web of access points for the viewer to engage with, both conceptually and emotionally.

Sam Gillett < Back Originally Published On: August 1, 2022 Originally Published By: The Highlander Gord Peteran debuts new work at Haliburton Sculpture Forest Written By: Sam Gillett The Haliburton Sculpture Forest’s newest addition was installed last spring, but won’t be finished for about 30 years. At a ribbon-cutting and artist talk July 26, sculptor Gord Peteran said his wooden constructions, which make up Passage, are designed to merge with the forest that surrounds them. “These works are out of my hands. It’s your obligation to finish them,” he said, referring both to the physical decay of the wooden creations, but also to the way visitors will interpret the enigmatic sculpture, installed in the spring of 2021. A set of oars are affixed to a high wooden table. On each side of the table, two wooden door frames book-end the work, which is nestled in a small glade of trees. “Tables represent gathering … the dining table is the core of the family,” Peteran said. The artist, also responsible for crafting the iconic red doors at the Haliburton School of Art + Design (HSAD), said he delights in challenging how people view objects. The oars, for instance, could infer the table could be in motion. “Is a table kind of like a vessel?” Peteran asked. Passage, like most of Peteran’s work, is about humans; how and why we build and use objects. “I look at historical craft as evidence of human behaviour,” he said, later at a talk in the great hall of the HSAD. It’s a study, he said, of “what does the human tend to do?” Perhaps it’s a form of art that emerged from his childhood on Mountain Lake. “What I do comes right out of that lake,” Peteran mused. He said at lakes and cottages “something happens in the mind. The brain has a chance to explode.” Whether his grandmother’s rolling pin or carving tools gathered from settler’s tree clearing operations in the north, Peteran grew fascinated with the objects people build. He’s spent years constructing iconic halfmoon end tables, exploiting their shape and forming them with odds and ends from his workshop, or even driftwood and twine. “They’re basically junk,” he said. Peteran seemed bemused by how the shapes could resonate with people even if the tables weren’t functional. Our perception of common household fixtures change, he said, if he “takes the familiar and intervenes in some tiny way.” Peteran’s sculpture was funded by Barb Bolin, a chair of the sculpture forest. “Every sculpture brings its own story to the sculpture forest, and connects with other stories and sculptures in such intriguing ways,” said board member Annette Blady Van Mil. “We want to thank you, Gord, for making the stories continue.” For more information on the Haliburton Sculpture Forest visit haliburtonsculptureforest.ca. Read the Original Article Here: https://thehighlander.ca/2022/08/04/new-sculpture-to-grow-into-the-forest/ < Previous Article Next Article >

Sayde Demers < Art Huts Location Art Hut 3 Directions Art Hut 3 is located at the Eastern edge of the Sculpture Forest, close to the water. To find Art Hut 3: Walk to 27. Together We Explore the Wild, Art Hut 3 is located behind this sculpture Installation Start: March 1, 2023 Installation End: August 31, 2023 Sayde Demers The Mystery Shack, 2023 Mixed media installation made of found objects, sculptural elements and vitrines The Mystery Shack is a captivating exploration of the intersection between art, nature, and the surreal. Reminiscent of an historic Cabinet of Curiosities—a curated collection of objects that represent moments in time, as well as the exotic interests of its collector—this installation challenges our perceptions of what is natural and what is real. The works showcased are designed to create a sense of intrigue and wonder—drawing the audience into a world that is at once familiar and yet, strangely foreign. By featuring animals with bizarre and fantastical characteristics, this installation aims to explore the boundaries of our imagination and challenge our understanding of the natural world. Can we think beyond our industrialized and digitized present to a future where all creatures can co-exist without having to be placed in a museum or zoo, in order to appreciate the wonders of our earthly paradise? About the Artist Sayde Demers Sayde Demers brings memories from childhood to life with her awesome imagination and playful creativity.Growing up in a concrete suburban jungle (Oakville, ON), she found herself yearning for nature and finding inspiration and comfort within the natural world. Through the use of different materials, a unique palette and out-of-the-box thinking, Demers is able to splatter her imagination onto anything she touches. Unable to conform to one medium, Sayde has developed her skills in painting, fibre art, ceramics, sculpture and assemblage, in order to present her mixed media works. Spontaneous and fun, with some darkness thrown in for good measure, her artworks deliver a creative vibe that’s reminiscent of the carefree attitudes most of us have experienced as children. Instagram: @sayde.fuse Sayde Demers is an Integrated Design Diploma student at Fleming College's Haliburton School of Art and Design. Previous Next

Scott McKay All Sculptures Fire Bench Number on Map F Artist Scott McKay Material Corten Steel Installation Date January 1, 2020 Learn About the Artist Wendy Wilkins, the patron who purchased Mother Earth and commissioned the Sun Bench to accompany it, thought it would be lovely to add a couple more Scott McKay one-of-a-kind benches to create Mother Earth’s living room where a whole family or group of friends could gather. So, she worked with the Sculpture Forest to commission two new nature inspired benches - Forest Screen Bench and Fire Bench - to complete the set and create Mother Earth's living room. In 2018 the Haliburton Sculpture Forest teamed up with the Haliburton Village BIA (business Improvement Area) to create the Downtown Haliburton Sculpture Exhibition. This featured the display of six sculptures on the main street from Ontario artists from June to October. McKay’s Mother Earth was one of them. Mother Earth is McKay’s vision of the classical mother figure who is one with the tree of life. More Photos Previous Next