Last year, at an arthouse exhibition, Calgary’s Ball, Edmonton’s Shoko Cesar and others sparked the idea to launch an exhibit right here in western Canada.

So was born MADE in the WEST, an art and industrial design exhibit showcasing talent from across western Canada. The exhibit is slated for Calgary until June 8, and then from June 20 to July 2, the exhibit will be presented in Edmonton at The Works Festival.
Ball and interior designer Laura Fenniak, owner of arthouse, co-curated the show. “For the designers and artists who work locally, MADE in the WEST will spotlight the really inte­resting work they’re doing and recognize them locally,” explains Ball.

Although the exhibit is now scheduled for Calgary and Edmonton, the curators and exhibitors are open to expanding to include more western Canadian venues and dates. From emerging Ball to Vancouver’s established Brent Comber and his famed Alder Kiss, the eclectic mix of industrial designers and artists hail from across western Canada.

Ball and Cesar, known for The Hoodoo series inspired by the Alberta landscape, will present their latest Hoodoo design, the Buckshot Light. “Buckshot blurs the boundaries between Art and Design using a 12-gauge shotgun as a vehicle of creativity to create this series of work,” says Ball.

Another Calgary and Edmonton design group, Loyal Loot Collective, will present its Soft table. Loyal Loot members Doha Chebib, Carmen Douville, Dara Humniski and Anna Thomas, specialize in furniture, products and clothing. “Soft table has a solid surface on its centre and a flexible surface on its edge,” says Loyal Loot. “Objects can be placed on the solid centre, or possessions can be hidden inside the thin pocket on the edge. The pocket ring draws a line between what is soft and what is solid.”

Winnipeg-based industrial designer Matthew Kroeker will present his Saw Lamp. “Paying homage to ancestral furniture makers, Saw is at once sculpture and furniture,” says Kroeker. “The solid wood table contains several stylized ‘saw cuts’ into which the nickel-plated lamp post is inserted, each providing a different intensity of light or not light at all when placed in the resting slot.”

Formerly known as Plastic Buddha design, Winnipeg’s Craig Alun Smith will present BRDI, a 21st-century solar-powered clothes drying system (or clothes line) for Canadian manufacturer HutJ.

“One of the reasons, I designed BRDI was to stick up a middle finger at Suburban North American communities who with few exceptions have outlawed clotheslines for ‘esthetic’ reasons and conformity,” says Smith. “If all Americans line-dried, it would save seven per cent of the country’s total residential output of carbon dioxide.”

For a complete list of exhibitors and other MITW information, go to http://www.madeinthewest.ca  NL