WolseleyGirl.com: reflections on life in the granola belt

It's the labour day weekend, the end of a summer of trashy beach reads, giddy Glee reruns on the tube and mindless blow-em-ups at the multiplex. Come Tuesday the holidays are over and we're all back to business. School starts, casual dress at work is again frowned upon and the overloaded family...

The Winnipeg Art Gallery plans to leave a legacy of its 2012 centennial year by erecting a $30-million Inuit Art Centre on the site of its current studio building. The facility will showcase the WAG's public collection of Inuit art -- the world's largest -- and serve as an international centre

A prize-winning work of student art deemed too violent for public consumption will finally go on view at the University of Manitoba later this month. Infinite Struggles of Man, a three-minute looped piece of multi-media video art by Corey and Danielle King, will be displayed Sept. 13-24 at the

On Tuesday, Stella Snidal gave her final weather report at the Manitoba Children's Museum, forecasting a giant tornado. Then the outgoing eight-year-old signed off forever from the mock TV station where she has spent many imaginative hours, both behind and in front of the closed-circuit

The new home of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art was christened Thursday by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who blurted in what seemed to be an unscripted finish to her speech, "Winnipeg is so edgy!" In fact, Plug In sent a message with its first permanent artwork for the

Dry Cold Productions will celebrate its 10th birthday next May with the city's first professional production of Stephen Sondheim's blood-stained musical Sweeney Todd. The pitch-black tale about the demon barber of Fleet Street is the show Donna Fletcher and Reid Harrison aspired to one day

SENIOR Winnipeg artist Eleanor Bond has the honour of hosting today's official opening of the Buhler Centre, the distinctive new building at the corner of Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard co-owned by Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art and the University of Winnipeg. About 200 movers and

You've read the book. You've taken the tour. Maybe you've even audited the course. Now you can see the art photography show. Mystery and Magic at the Legislature, which opens a week from tonight at 7 p.m. in the Exchange District gallery Cre8ery, focuses on the alleged occult roots of Manitoba's

There's a lot going on in this rich and strange two-person show at aceart, but it all circles around the anything-can-happen possibilities of stop-motion animation. With its herky-jerky pacing and its creation of self-enclosed, slightly obsessive worlds, stop-motion can embody giddy sweetness or

The lines and textures of Winnipeg's grand old buildings -- banks, churches, apartment blocks, halls of learning -- can be gorgeously photogenic. But decaying warehouses, abandoned theatres and streets devoid of pedestrian life are constant reminders that this city's boom years are long

Ever wonder where creative types — artists, writers, filmmakers and the like — get their ideas? And how they grow seeds of inspiration into something real? Find out tonight when 11 artsy Winnipeggers will take to the stage of the Park Theatre (698 Osborne St.) at 8 p.m. to show

While walking-tour participants admire his handiwork on the walls of Winnipeg, mural artist Charlie Johnston is in the Deep South working on the biggest project of his career. And he's basically working for peanuts. "It's the biggest thing I've ever done -- by two," says Johnston over

WINNIPEG artist Ken Gregory has an installation piece being displayed in San Jose, Calif., next month. Gregory's kinetic sound sculpture wind coil sound flow will be at the San Jose City Hall rotunda as part of the city's Build Your Own World art festival and exhibition Sept. 16-19. Gregory,

Crashing a festival to which they weren't invited has paid off in a prestigious engagement for Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers. The five-dancer company will appear at Ottawa's National Arts Centre (NAC) in late April (the exact date is still to be confirmed) as part of Prairie Scene, the

Concerts Lockport 100th Anniversary Opening ceremonies 11:30 a.m. with headliner Chantal Kreviazuk 8 p.m.; $39 or weekend pass for $65 at Ticketmaster. Theatre In Riel’s Footsteps Theatre in the Cemetery, 7 p.m. Saint-Boniface Cathedral Cemetery. French show: 9:30 p.m.; $5 to $7. Tom

What a thrill to read earlier this week that the great Baltimore filmmaker John Waters is coming to Winnipeg in November to speak. He's being brought here as a guest of the Cultural Capital of Canada program to participate in a symposium called My City's Still Breathing. My fascination with

THE Creative Arts Emmys -- the awards for the camera operators, hairstylists, crew technicians, set decorators; in short, all the people whose work you see every week but may take for granted -- will be handed out late Saturday night in Los Angeles. The big Emmy show is next week on Aug.

If you see a group of Winnipeggers behaving strangely on the Esplanade Riel in the dead of night on a September weekend, don't call 911. They're knitters. Local artists Kristin Nelson and Jennifer Smith want to get enough people involved in their collaborative project, Knitting the Bridge, to

In the summer of 1717, the premiere of Handel's Water Music was performed by 50 musicians on a barge that floated down London's Thames River. King George I, who listened from his royal barge, is said to have been so captivated that he ordered the musicians to play Handel's baroque suites three

The Winnipeg theatre community is slowly beginning to stir back to life after the creative blow-out that was the fringe festival last month. No one is expending too much energy in the dog days of August and are mostly focused on staging repeats. Aqua Books is hosting a fringe-fest holdover