Singles group hosting mix-and-mingle party

Phyllis Nisi and Gord Taylor met each other through the Rural Singles Group, which is hosting a mix-and-mingle party taking place at The Willy in Okotoks Feb. 9, with proceeds going to support the Foothills Country Hospice. photo by Tamara Neely

By Tamara Neely
Staff Reporter

There’s no need to be alone out there in the lone prairie.
The Rural Singles Group welcomes singles from across the Foothills to jump in and join one of its activities and to add their name to the group list to be invited to upcoming events. The group is free to join and new members are always welcome.
Events are ongoing, both scheduled and spontaneous.
Next up on the schedule is a party on Saturday, Feb. 9, at The Willy bar in Okotoks with proceeds going to the Foothills Country Hospice, and all, including people in relationships, are welcome to join.
Admission is $10, and given that past events have drawn 300 to 400 guests, the event could prove to be financially successful for the hospice and socially successful for singles looking to meet people.
Organizer Barb Pillon calls the event a meet-and-mingle social and singles from across the Foothills up through Calgary and as far north as Airdrie are expected to attend.
The Rural Singles Group is in its ninth year, and members come and go, get married and move on. There are currently approximately 20 regular members ranging between 35- and 65-years-old, and a few more women than men. There is no cost to join the group; once people join, their phone number and e-mail address is added to their contact list and members are invited to upcoming events.
The group is also connected with singles groups in Calgary and when an event is scheduled word travels through the networks, so opportunities to meet people abound.
Pillon points out that the purpose of the club and the networking is primarily to socialize, and dating is a byproduct of single people enjoying each other’s company.
“It’s a social group, not a dating club,” said Pillon.
Pillon has been a member for eight years and has remained single. While she has dated a couple of times, for her the group has been a source of good friends.
“If you meet someone – bonus – but if you don’t, you’ve met really good friends,” she said.
There are a lot of avenues for singles to meet other singles, for example dating websites, dating services and speed dating. Pillon finds looking for love online “cold,” and the singles group isn’t cold – socializing through the group’s activities is a comfortable way to get to know people. When people come to club events, they’re there because they want to be there, and over the years friendships – and relationships – have kindled, she said.
“We have a lot of fun. Married people don’t want to hang out with single people, usually,” said Pillon.
Richard McIver, 55, hooked up with the Rural Singles Group last spring when he saw an ad in the paper. He too feels uncomfortable socializing with married people and he was looking for single folks with whom to socialize.
“My experience over 19 years (being single) is most married people don’t want single people hanging around; you might steal their spouse, I guess,” said McIver, adding, “Most couples do couple things, by and large.”
McIver leads an active life, but he hadn’t met people to engage with socially while getting out hiking and biking and working as a contractor for power lines.
“I’ve lived in High River since 1993, and it’s tough to meet people. I don’t hang out at the bars, and it’s hard to tell who’s single there anyway,” he said.
The singles group opened up his opportunities to engage in activities he already enjoys.
“It’s a good opportunity to meet people who share a common situation in life, and are open to meeting other singles,” said McIver.
Julie Renter, in her 60s, said the group helped her make some very good friends when she separated from her husband. She has been a member for two years and has made valuable friendships that delve into the important areas of her life, not just the surface friendship she has with people at work.
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Renter. “Basically, what I like about it is it’s fomale-female contact, a time to get together and enjoy each other’s company.”
As an outlet for male-female socializing, for Renter that didn’t mean dating.
“I’ve never looked at it that way, I looked at it as something for me to go and do without having an escort,” she said. “You can go out for an evening without feeling like you don’t belong or don’t fit in. You’re welcome, we don’t pry and probe, we get together to have a few laughs.”
Many of the singles drawn to the Rural Singles Group have recently moved to the Foothills and/or have recently divorced. Kathy Warner joined the group after being divorced four years and she was ready to start socializing. She joined in the spring of 2004 and met and fell in love with with her fiance by the fall of that year and they now live in Saskatchewan.
“I didn’t have any intention of falling in love,” said Warner. “I had spent three to four years with four walls and my dog, so it was time to get out and talk to people.”
Warner was in a position where she wasn’t getting out, didn’t know how to start getting out and didn’t have a group to get out with.
“At the time, when I didn’t know how to get out there, it was a godsend, because it got me out there in a very friendly atmosphere,” said Warner. “The group was a big help to me, it wasn’t necessarily a match-making group, it was a social get-out-and-do-things group.”
Activities vary; some are annual events, some are weekly and some are organized spontaneously.
Members annually get together for Halloween, Christmas and New Year’s parties. They often meet up at In Cahoots Bar and Grill in Okotoks for wings on Thursday nights.
At the start of each month members get together and throw ideas around, suggesting activities to suit the mood of the month. Events have included playing cards, holding pot lucks, outdoor activities like roasting hotdogs, hiking, horseback riding, floating down a river in the summertime and heading out dancing. Some activities are planned with members’ children in mind, so all can have some fun together.
In addition to being something fun for members to do socially with others, engaging in an activity with new friends is a good way to get to know people without the pressure that comes with, for example, meeting people in a bar scenario.
Warner recounted that when she went with the group to a country bar to go dancing, she had a great time dancing with gentlemen from the group because she had already established a friendship with them from previous activities.
“I didn’t end up either not dancing at all, dancing with girls or dancing with strangers. So it was great, I’d played cards or bowled with the guys before (so she felt comfortable with them) and they wanted to dance, too. So it was nice.”
The Rural Singles Group, she said, “is an opportunity to make new friends, friends who are in the same situation you’re in.”
The upcoming fundraiser will include snacks and drink specials for the evening and a band called The Foolish Heart will set the party mood. Nametags will be available to facilitate the mingling, which, said Pillon, is a good opportunity to meet people and lower the pressure on the dating angle of the evening.
Doors will open at 8:30 p.m. The Willy is located in the Okotoks Inn at 2 Elizabeth Street. For more information about the fundraiser or about the Rural Singles Group activities, email Barb Pillon at ruralsinglesgroup@hotmail.com.

Metalworks and landscapes dot The Station

By Tamara Neely
Staff Reporter

Christine Pinder’s art, including this piece called Mystified, together with the art of Shirley Paradis, will be showing at The Station in Okotoks from Feb. 1 to 29. The opening reception will be Friday, Feb. 8. photo submitted

The Station is a cozy place to take shelter on a cold day. Warm your bones while perusing two new shows. All Things Bright and Beautiful features jewellery, metal work and paintings by Shirley Paradis and Christine Pinder; and an exhibit called Colours, Flats and Spaces features an exploration of landscape with paintings by John Sidorenko and his son, Aaron Sidorenko, and photography by Wendy
Warren.
While both shows run from February 1 to 29, the opening reception for Colours, Flats and Spaces comes first on Sunday from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The opening reception for All Things Bright and Beautiful will be next Friday, Feb. 8, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Colours, Flats and Spaces
The exploration of landscape in this exhibition focuses more on space than on any one specific area, Aaron Sidorenko explained. The show came together with John Sidorenko’s idea to do a show together, with Aaron, his son, and Wendy Warren, his girlfriend.
John’s landscapes are done in oils and acrylics, while Aaron has been creating landscapes using various media, including pastels, oils, charcoal, and a medium called encaustic, which, Aaron explained, is pigmented beeswax.
Aaron’s landscapes have been influenced by what he sees around him on his route to his studio.
“On my way to the studio there’s a lot of construction, so for me (my landscapes are about) what’s happening – the morphing of landscape into the unknown,” said Aaron.
“It’s bigger questions I’m trying to ask – about growth and commerce… and ultimately about the people that live and depend on the landscape.”
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Shirley Paradis and Christine Pinder will be exhibiting primarily art crafted from metals, including art for the walls and for the body.
Pinder, who recently delved into her Metis heritage, works First Nations themes into both her jewelry and wall art, finding peace in the imagery.
“It comes to me in my dreams,” said Pinder. “It gives me comfort (creating native imagery into art) and a lot of people find inner peace when they see it, so that makes me want to do it more.”
Pinder started silversmithing three years ago in a class with Paradis, and has been hooked ever since.
“I found my passion,” said Pinder.
Paradis not only teaches silversmithing, but also a whole range of classes that fall into the art category and the craft category. She is also the president of the Okotoks Arts Council.
She has, for the past five years, had an exhibit of her creations in February, and this year most of the work she will show has been created since Christmas.
“I’m a flutterby, I always have about 30 things on the go,” said Paradis.
In addition to acrylic, oil, and water colour paintings, she will be showing metal work in this show, and the metal work is predominantly jewelry, though some is, like gardening angels, art to hang around the home.
The art in this exhibit will range in price. For example, silver and bead earrings will sell for $5, while Paradis’ buffalo rawhide sculpture featuring 18 hand-painted, raised and engraved eagle feathers will sell for $2,000.
Winter hours
The Station Cultural Centre is located at 53 North Railway Street. For more information call (403) 938-3204. Winter hours for The Station are Monday to Thursday, noon to 7 p.m. and Friday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

Dale Fea, holding a stained glass window she recently completed, is offering a stained glass art class at The Station on Saturday. photo by Tamara Neely

Learn the ancient ways of stained glass art

By Tamara Neely
Staff Reporter

Selecting pieces of coloured glass to solder together into art is an activity people have been doing since ancient times, and people went through the same thought process in medieval times as glass artists do today, though with different techniques.
Okotokian Dale Fea is skilled in the current technique of creating stained glass windows and she will be presenting an all-day class on Saturday in Okotoks at The Station Cultural Centre.
Fea has been designing and producing stained glass for 18 years; 12 were spent working at a friend’s shop creating personally motivated art pieces as well as producing stained glass for clients and teaching glass techniques.
The class is called Glass Evolution and Fea will be assisted by artist Shirley Paradis; together the two will guide students in the technical aspect of creating stained glass art and juxtaposition of colour.
“I’m there for the technicality and Shirley is there for the inspiration,” said Fea. “Shirley comes along and the world just opens up.”
Students will use the copper foil method and will cut, solder and foil glass to create a completed work of art. Though cutting glass may worry some, Fea said that learning safe glass handling techniques removes the risk.
“I’m one of those people that is ‘urgh’ about blood and I do not like sharp objects, but you’re usually not at risk of that if you do it properly.”
Class sizes at The Station tend to be small –– between five and eight people –– allowing for an attentive and collaborative vibe among students and instructors. Students can receive as much or as little input from the instructors as they would like. Fea pointed out that sometimes there’s a surge of creativity when one hits a block. When something’s not working, then magic happens. She and Paradis will be there to assist, if needed.
All materials will be supplied, including a bountiful selection of colours to inspire and excite.
“It’s almost like playing with jewels, the colours and the interplay of how it catches the light. You could do the same pattern several times and it’s never the same,” she said.
“I think it’s a wonderful way to learn whether or not you want to work with the medium and it’s inspirational to know, ‘Yes, I can do this.’”
The Glass Evolution class takes place on Saturday
in the upper studio in
The Station, which is located at 53 North Railway Street. The class will begin at 10 a.m. and continue
to 4 p.m., with breaks.
The class fee is $65. Call
The Station to register,
(403) 938-3204.