Just as her artwork fuses together recycled glass and stone, Peterborough artist Christy Haldane believes art in itself can be a fusion of both admirable fine art and interactive, functional craftwork.

This Saturday (November 4), her glass-and-stone creations will be on display at the fall open house at Lakefield’s The English Potter & Co. There, Haldane will be joined by the other local artisans whose work is featured at the store, including Emerance Baker (Stoney Lake Textiles), Gail West (The English Potter), and Jim Riches (FriendLilySHOP).

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the open house will include refreshments, sewing, and pottery demonstrations, and the chance to win a gift basket. Though labelled a fall open house, it’s sure to feel more like a winter festivity, given the flutters of snow on the ground and the thoughts of custom Christmas gifts in the back of shoppers’ minds.

“We’re hoping that people come out and talk to us about commission work and begin to think about getting unique gifts made in our own styles,” explains Haldane.

Though Haldane has been a part of The English Potter since May, she spreads herself across the Kawarthas, living in Peterborough and working from her studio space in Douro, which she shares with Garrett Gilbart (Burn Island).

There, she crafts her one-of-a-kind sculptural installations, functional pieces like vases and bookends, and custom “Memory Stones” curated from a stone provided by a client. Her work can be found in galleries and shops across Ontario, including in Toronto, Ottawa, Port Dover, Prince Edward County, Port Perry, and beyond.

Haldane was studying furniture design at Sheridan College when she says she got “sucked in” to hot glass (glass blowing) as a medium, which eventually led her to experiment with the kiln that she uses now.

“It’s an old medium, but not in the artistic sense,” Haldane says. “It was interesting to me to get into using a material that’s not commonly used in fine arts and being able to straddle the craft world and the art world.”

With this background in craft and design, Haldane was taught to make “useful” items, but was drawn to the capacity the medium had for both sculptural and functional pieces, and in the different ways to “approach” the material. Fortunately, throughout her career, she’s noticed a growing interest in glass work and more acceptance of craft as art.

“I find craft as a medium, since I’ve been in school, has become more accepted in the mainstream art gallery,” Haldane notes. “I think people want to be able to feel, touch, and experience it. And I think with the craft mediums, people can relate to them and understand it.”

In 2000, when Haldane went to study at the Canberra Art School in Australia, she began to think less about the distinction between art and craft and more about bridging the gap between functional items and contemporary art that is more centred around concept.

“It was always this question you have to answer,” she says. “Whereas I went to Australia and I felt like they were telling me, ‘Who cares? Let’s just make’.”

With this freedom, it was during her time in Australia she become more experimental in approaching glass work, intentionally thinking about using recycled glass and ways to repurpose found material. She continues to use repurposed window glass in her work today.

“Once you’ve started using those recycled materials and glass materials, it’s really hard to go back,” she explains. “I don’t want to produce any more plastic — even concrete is really bad for the environment — so I’m trying to just make my practice as sustainable as I can.”

Like the evolution of craft as art, conversations around environmentally conscious practices have also become more commonplace throughout the course of Haldane’s career, and now many friends and neighbours will give her their discarded glass and bottles to repurpose.

“Window glass can’t be recycled like other glass, so that’s why I really gravitate to it,” Haldane points out, adding that glass production is another massive industry and it would take a lot of energy to extract what she would need out of the earth.

Committed to purposeful purchasing, Haldane feels it important to do what she can to repurpose what already is being discarded in the world and thinks that’s a key piece to think about when purchasing from an artisan.

“That’s the nice thing about craft — you’re working with the local artist or artisan and there’s thought put into it,” the artist explains. “You talk to them, you get to tell them your story, and they produce something that fits in, and it becomes a heirloom or a story in itself. I think we really need to start thinking about the want and the need of our lives more — and you need art.”

As a maker, Haldane has believed in the power of a small item made with purpose since she was young and growing up on Lake Erie. She collected all the little materials that she could find, like shattered glass, fossils, and stones.

This continues to gave an impact on her work today, as she says a lot of her work is about “memories and recollection,” especially when it comes to her custom Memory Stones.

“I liked that idea of having objects that actually have significance through your life,” she notes. “It’s all about incorporating the rocks to have memory of a place, of a moment.”

Currently, Haldane is experimenting with fusing recycled bottled glass, adding more colour to her structures.

Along with being present at the fall open house at The English Potter on Saturday, Haldane and her artwork can be found during Ladies Night Out in Lakefield being held over six Tuesday and Thursday evenings in November (as of the date of this story, all evenings are sold out except for November 28 and 30).

To browse and purchase Haldane’s sculptures, visit www.christyhaldane.com and, to stay up to date on events and fairs, follow her on Facebook.

The original version of this story has been updated with a correction about the dates for Ladies Night Out in Lakefield.

In early January, presented with the rare occurrence of some uninterrupted free time, Emily Burgess made the most of the opportunity.

Over the course of 10 days of “just me in an apartment with my guitar,” Burgess got busy, putting the finishing touches on a few songs that, up to that point, were but riffs in her head in need of lyrics.

“I was like ‘I can’t get to my guitar and write a song — there’s just so much going on’,” recalls the Peterborough guitarist and singer-songwriter of where she was at immediately before her “writing burst.”

“Things kept coming to me and, for some reason, seemed easier,” Burgess adds. “You want to take advantage because that doesn’t always happen.”

Such was the genesis of Arrow, Burgess’ third studio album released in late October.

The 10-track disc, mixed by Peterborough’s James McKenty at In Record Time Studio and mastered by Andy Pryde, follows her 2017 debut album Are We In Love? and 2019’s follow-up Never Ending Fling recorded with her trio The Emburys, comprised of herself Marcus Browne (drums) and Dawson McManus (bass).

VIDEO: “Trickin’ My Heart” – Emily Burgess

“You come up with a song and you make a little demo,” says Burgess. “The urge to send that to someone (to give a listen) is so strong. That person for me is Ryan (Weber). As soon as I’ve got something, I send it to him and ask ‘What do you think?’ Having that affirmation is good. You’re like ‘Alright, I’ve got something here’.”

Recorded in the spring, Arrow saw Burgess surround herself with musician friends she’s not only very comfortable with but who are also at the top of their game. Ryan and Sam Weber (who also produced the album), Benj Rowland, and Browne and McManus joined her in the studio, gifting their talent to the finished product. Also huge, says Burgess, was McKenty’s guidance.

“It’s so great when you’ve got someone who, you know, says ‘Let’s try this. Oh no, let’s move the mic. OK, let’s try adding that’ to get the right sound, the right feel,” assesses Burgess. “We went in ahead of time to sort of explain the vibe we were going for. James is also an incredible musician, so he gets it. He mixed it so beautifully.”

“One thing I really wanted on this (record) was a more mature-sounding voice,” Burgess points out. “Whether or not I achieved that, that’s for everyone else to say, but really layering my vocal with lots of harmonies and just having a more mature sound than the previous two (albums), that was a really important thing to me. Your voice is your voice — you can only change it so much, but there are ways to get closer to what you want.”

It helped, says Burgess, that she played some of the new songs live before heading into the studio.

“Playing week after week, fours hours at a time, gives you a lot of opportunity to try stuff out. I felt I had a really good sense of (the songs) going into the studio.”

Her previous studio experience, says Burgess, also paid a huge dividend.

“After recording the first two albums, I was like ‘Oh, I should have done that different.’ On this one, it was ‘OK, I’m going to try my very best to get to a point where I’m not looking back and be like oh, I wish this and I wish that.’ I really tried to be overly critical of each detail, trying to be as objective as possible. I definitely see it as a step up from my first two albums.”

McKenty couldn’t agree more.

“When I first recorded Emily, she was kind of new to being the front singer,” he says. “With each album, she’s become more confident in that role. She’s also fine-tuned her songwriting. When she comes into the studio now, she has a lot of the parts already worked out.”

“She’s an amazing and competent player in the world of blues. A lot of blues music artists improvise stuff in the studio — it’s like a jam session — but that’s not the case with Emily. Every guitar part is worked out as well as what the vocal should be. She comes in fully formed. She’s ready to go.”

Of note, adds McKenty, is Burgess’ transformation from her early iteration as a blues player to a multi-genre artist, represented on Arrow by “a variety of music styles.”

“What makes this album cohesive is Emily — her voice and her guitar playing. It was really fun to record because there was room for some sonic experimentation. We really got into that. How do we make each song it’s own unique thing but still hold together as an album?”

Now more distant from the blues musician label that was furthered by her 2018 Maple Blues Award win in the New Artist/Group of the Year category, Burgess acknowledges a continued affinity for the genre but admits to be more open-minded to other styles of music. For that she credits the Sam and Ryan Weber of The Weber Brothers Band, who she’s joined for countless gigs going back to 2014.

“Joining the Weber Brothers, things really opened up for me,” Burgess says. “I got exposed to a lot of different types of music and ways to play, and I get to be on stage with Sam — like the best guitar player ever. I’m picking up a lot off from them. Ryan is the reason I started to sing. Their influence I can’t put into words.”

What hasn’t changed is how grateful Burgess is to be able to do what she intended to do early on. Born and raised in Mississauga, she says pursuing a path in music “was a very conscious decision.”

“There was always music in the house. My dad played albums all the time — the supreme music appreciator. My mom played the piano, hymns and stuff. My oldest brother Andrew played guitar. There was music all around me.”

“After I switched to guitar from piano when I was 14, I had the plan for what I was going to do before I could even play. I had an understanding from taking piano that practising made you better. I didn’t practise enough on the piano, so I understood why I wasn’t as good as I should be. With the guitar, I practised many hours each day right from the get-go. You see where you want to be, and you try to get there.”

Guitar in hand, Burgess completed her formal music education in the jazz program at Humber College. What followed was time with the Etobicoke-based 24th Street Wailers, her talent featured on the band’s 2015 Juno Award-nominated album Wicked.

Also a member of that band was Jonathan “Jonny” Wong, who passed away from leukemia in October 2021. The supremely gifted saxophonist positively touched the lives of all he met and befriended, Burgess among them.

“After Jonny died, I was devastated,” recalls Burgess. “I went straight to my guitar. It wasn’t like ‘I’ve got to take this and turn it into this’ but I went straight into writing something about it. I think a lot of songwriters would say that’s the way you process things. That’s the way you work through it. You feel really fortunate to be able to do that.”

In Peterborough now for some 10 years — performing solo, with The Webers Brother Band and, on occasion, fronting her own trio — Burgess says she’s “more open than ever to finding inspiration.”

“I know it’s cliché to say, but we’ve got something really special in Peterborough,” she says. “(Juno Award nominee) Rick Fines lives two minutes away from me. He’s a legend. I don’t go to it as much as I would like to, but there’s the weekly Jethro’s blues ham — young players getting up there and killing it.”

“I have felt so much love, so much support, from this community. I feel like I’m from here. I really do.”

AUDIO: “Arrow” – Emily Burgess

And so Burgess’ journey continues. Where it will lead, who can say with certainty, but McKenty passes on a truth he has come to realize.

“Emily will continue to grow because she’s so dedicated to her craft. When you work as hard as she does, well, it’s inevitable that you’re going to get better and better.”

The local CD release party for Arrow will be held Saturday, January 27th at Erben at 379 George Street North in downtown Peterborough, with Melissa Payne opening and Burgess’ album collaborators — Ryan and Sam Weber, Marcus Browne, and Dawson McManus — joining her onstage. Tickets cost $20 and are available now at erbenptbo.com/event-details/erben-presents-emily-burgess-album-release-with-melissa-payne.

Arrow can be streamed Spotify and Apple Music. To purchase a CD and download card, email Burgess directly at emily.burgess22@gmail.com.

This story has been updated with a change of venue for Emily Burgess’ January 27th CD release party, which now takes place at Erben instead of the Gordon Best Theatre.

Every Thursday, we publish live music events at pubs and restaurants in Peterborough and the greater Kawarthas region based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, November 2 to Wednesday, November 8.

If you’re a pub or restaurant owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our nightlifeNOW editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com. For concerts and live music events at other venues, check out our Concerts & Live Music page.

With the exception of karaoke, we only list events with performing musicians. Venues may also host other events during the week (e.g., dancing, DJs, comedy shows).

With the cold weather here along with a smattering of snow, our collective thoughts will soon turn to the Christmas season, and the insanity associated with having so much in so little time. But since 2000, a treasured respite from the craziness has provided thousands of people with a most welcome break while raising thousands of dollars for Peterborough’s YES Shelter for Youth and Families.

‘In From The Cold’ returns on Friday, December 8th and Saturday, December 9th, again taking up residence at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough. Tickets for either 8 p.m. performance are now available at a cost of $25 ($30 for cabaret seating) and can be ordered online at markethall.org.

Featuring seasonal music that one would be hard pressed to hear anywhere else, the annual benefit concert — co-founded by local musicians John Hoffman, Susan Newman, Rob Fortin, and Curtis Driedger — has raised close to $170,000 for the Brock Street shelter’s provision of its programs, with last year’s result of $19,963.43 the highest one-year total to date.

Just as they were back in 2000, Newman and Fortin are in the mix once again, performing with Hoffman as the trio Carried Away.

Joining them, as they have year after year since, will be multi-instrumentalists Driedger and Michael Ketemer, Celtic harpist Tanah Haney, and the 28-voice Convivio Chorus.

In From The Cold, recounts Newman, started quite by accident.

“Rob had this kind of party trick he could do — drop D tuning on the guitar and doing a medley of Christmas carols: I Saw Three Ships, Good King Wenceslas, Joy To The World,” she says.

“We were at dinner at John and Holly’s,” Fortin adds, referring to Hoffman and his wife. “It was around Christmas time. John and Susan started playing along and it was like ‘Boy, this sounds nice.’ That was it. We thought we had better try this out on the public.”

That they did, not at Market Hall but at the Peterborough Memorial Centre as part of the Festival of Trees entertainment lineup.

“It was nice but the sound was what you’d expect in a cavernous arena with trees in it,” recalls Newman, noting their post-show thoughts turned to “doing one night at Market Hall” with Driedger in the mix.

“Right around the same time (the summer of 1999), we were involved with the production of The Devil and Joseph Scriven at 4th Line Theatre. I set a bunch of Scriven’s poems to music and assembled a small choir of eight singers. That became the Convivio Chorus.”

Noting “all the essential elements” of In From The Cold were set at that first show, Fortin says making it a fundraiser for YES was agreed upon. At the time, it was a not-for-profit agency without a home.

“Later on, I remember (then YES executive director) David Haw saying at In From The Cold that this (the proceeds) ‘is our food budget.’ Once you realize you’re a line of their budget, you’re kind of obliged to do it. You don’t want to pull that. It takes on a life of its own. It’s something that has to happen.”

“John’s main objective was to play some music he liked with people he likes and have a nice show. I credit him with the idea of giving (the proceeds) to YES. I remember thinking ‘Let’s do it for the Prince of Wales music program’, which was hanging on by the skin of its teeth, but then John mentioned YES. We thought that was perfect.”

Better than perfect, according to YES executive director Aimeé Le Lagadec, who, having been appointed to that position in January 2022, attended her first In From The Cold concert last year.

“To think that, during the busy holiday season, enough people came out and showed us support, and showed all of the performers support, raising $20,000 over a couple of nights, is just astounding,” she marvels.

“We have the emergency shelter, but we also have an outreach team and we have transitional housing, so $20,000 goes a long way supporting those programs and the staff operating them, creating safe spaces for our youth and families.”

“Another big impact now is the cost of food. We’re having a really tough time keeping our shelves stocked with food. Folks can’t afford to buy their own food, so they can’t afford to give to Kawartha Food Share. That, in turn, means Kawartha Food Share can’t give to us. We’re having to increase our food budget in order to keep up with the demand in the shelter and our food cupboard for the community.”

Not lost on Le Lagadec is the fact that Hoffman, Newman, and Fortin could have opted to change the beneficiary of In From The Cold proceeds at any time but have not.

“To say that we’re thankful and grateful … well, there really aren’t any words,” she says. “A little tiny spark — maybe a lived experience that one of them had or someone they knew had — has led to a 23-year run of them supporting us.”

“It’s a beautiful thing — everything from the décor to the people. The whole atmosphere really sets the tone for the holiday season; a tone of giving and a tone of togetherness.”

As for what the audience will experience this time around, the trick according to Newman is to deliver what has worked so well while “keeping it interesting and alive for us” and fresh for returning supporters.

“For Carried Away, we’ve dug up songs by Canadian songwriters. We’re doing an original song of mine (set to a Robert Louis Stevenson Christmas poem), one by Ron Hynes (‘I’ll Be There Christmas Eve’), and one by Roy Forbes (‘Ring The Bells At Midnight’).”

The trio will also perform the 18th-century English carol “Gloucestershire Wassail” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from My Fair Lady, the latter a song that speaks more to the cause than the season.

“All I want is a room somewhere far away from the cold night air,” says Fortin, quoting a lyric. “It’s quite a powerful song in the context of what the evening is all about.”

Meanwhile, the Convivio Chorus will perform eight songs, four of which are the New Hebrides hymn “The Christ Child’s Lullaby,” “Star Of Wonder” written by Terre Roche of The Roches, the Peter, Paul and Mary standard “A Soalin’,” and the Swedish carol “Jul Jul Stralanded Jul.”

In addition, the Driedger-led Claveers will sing “Christmas Maybe,” and Hoffman, joined by Haney, will perform an instrumental medley of two Swedish songs traditionally sung to mark St. Lucia’s Day on December 13th.

“People will again hear instruments they don’t hear all that often,” adds Newman. “Michael plays the concertina, the hammered dulcimer, the recorder, and the tin whistle, and he always works up a fingerstyle guitar solo piece. There’s Tanah on the harp, and John brings in mandolin, bouzouki, and fiddle.”

VIDEO: “In From the Cold” – A Film By Rodney Fuentes (2017)

However, one thing that won’t be tinkered with is the “kitchen party vibe” that has been a trademark of In From The Cold since day one.

“I think the feeling in the room is what brings our audience back year after year,” assesses Fortin. “What we hear from our audience is this is a way of celebrating this time of the year that is ours. We own this. Music brings us together to have this moment.”

“So many say to us ‘Our Christmas season starts with In From The Cold.’ There are people I know only from the concert. We’re continually bumping into people who say ‘You don’t know us but we come to your show every year.'”

Newman notes the relatively low ticket price is another constant, and for good reason.

“We probably could have made more money for YES over the years, but it was really important to us to keep it affordable,” she says, noting “Everybody is laying out so much money at Christmas as it is.”

“Come in from the cold — the feeling of community in the room is the magic. It’s really special.”

While In From The Cold sponsors are still in the process of being procured, so far they include IG Private Wealth Management Adam McInroy and Associates, Wild Rock Compassion Project, and kawarthaNOW, a longtime supporter of In From The Cold.

For In From The Cold tickets, visit markethall.org. For more information about the services of YES Shelter for Youth and Families, visit yesshelter.ca.

This story has been updated with a correction that the Convivio Chorus will perform eight songs, including the four songs listed.