After the tree comes down and the glitter is boxed up for another year I look at what’s left behind and I want to paint, rearrange or completely renovate a space. In this issues’ Home Feature we bring you three very different living spaces that will inspire your post holiday interior project.

As you hopefully know by now, Routes has gone to six issues a year and we have also taken on a few new members to the team. Jacqueline Overmars will be in the office to take on some administrative duties. As well, writer Veronica Kloiber is going to offer the occasional family perspective article, which she has titled Mindmumming!  I am sure you’ll love it.

What we love doing every issue is talking to passionate and inspiring people like four local and talented athletes who play sledge hockey – such an inspiration. We also loved working with the High River sisters responsible for Crave cupcakes, getting to know them and see what brought them this far.

And speaking of food, we asked our readers for their favourite food at their favourite eating-places and we found 12 Great Eats for 2012! So, as Julia Childs would say Bon Appetit! (must be wearing pearls when you say this).

 Stay in, stay warm and don’t forget your routes!

Look What I Found:

Do you love magazines because you can read a story in just a few minutes and or simply love the writing style of short stories? On www.foundpress.com you can purchase a short story for as little as 99 cents and easily download it to your computer or your electronic reading devices.

By Pat Fream

Photos by Neville Palmer

Driving tractor, mucking out stalls and showing quarter horses – hardly the most common prerequisites for building a commercial cupcake empire. But Crave co-founders and sisters, Jodi Willoughby and Carolyne McIntyre Jackson, credit their rural roots with giving them the grit to veer away from conventional career options and take a chance on a sweet business idea.

“We grew up on a third generation farm just outside of High River,” says Jodi, the oldest of three girls in the McIntyre family. “Our father was a farmer/rancher with an entrepreneurial spirit; he grew and diversified when he saw opportunities and had the ability.”

Like most farm kids, the McIntyre sisters learned at a young age that the good things in life come from hard work, perseverance, and more hard work.”We never took anything for granted, we had to work for everything,” said Jodi, adding, “sometimes we went to school with two pairs of shoes, sometimes we only had one.”

But no matter the shoe status, Jodi and her sisters Carolyne and Antionette could be counted on to pitch in and help keep the family’s two-section farm just west of High River in good stead. “Dad didn’t have a lot of hired hands so we worked with him on the farm a lot,” she said. “In the summers, Antionette and I would tend cattle and show horses and Carolyn would either drive tractor or help mom with the cooking and baking.”

(Uh-Huh! Baking! The elusive kitchen duty that, under just the right circumstance, can turn farm girls into cupcake moguls!)

“Carolyne loved to be in the kitchen with mom,” said Jodi. “She envisioned herself as a modern day Kraft Kitchen Lady.” But baking sweet treats for a living was not the first pick for the two older McIntyre sisters, and the youngest of the trio had her sights set on a whole different career path. Then fate dealt the family a harsh blow.

“I had completed my second year at U of C and was taking a break, when our dad died suddenly of a brain aneurism,” said Jodi. “Losing him was devastating, it was extremely difficult for all of us, and not to mention our whole livelihood was at stake.” But tenacious genes run rampant in this family, and the girls and their mother pooled their strength, gratefully accepted help from neighbours and friends, and summoned the courage to carry on.

“Friends and neighbours helped mom keep the farm going for quite a few more years. It was difficult, but she wanted to stay there until we had all moved into places of our own, then she sold the homestead and moved to High River and went back to teaching,” said Jodi. Today Helen McIntyre is a retired active member in the community, and she still owns some of the family’s original land, which she farms with friends and neighbours.

All three girls graduated from Senator Riley and went on to university. Jodi continued on, earning a bachelor’s degree in community rehabilitation. Carolyne earned a Bachelor of Science degree in food business management. Antoinette got a degree in kinesiology and then went on to become a Calgary City Police Officer. All three girls were launched and employed, when the Kraft Kitchen Lady re-emerged.

“One day Carolyne came to me and said she was frustrated with having no creative latitude in her job. She asked me to join her in a cookie business,” said Jodi. “So I said ‘ya sure’, why not?” The girls (minus Antoinette who was content in her job) summoned their best cookie recipes, packaged them beautifully, and tried to sell them to a Calgary farmers’ market. They were turned down twice.

But the pair, still holding ‘real’ jobs persevered. “We really believed in the idea of a single serve dessert business, so we said, ‘Hey! We know how to do cupcakes!’” And so they did. Armed with their great grandmother’s chocolate cake recipe and their mother’s vanilla cake recipe, and steeped in their father’s staunch work ethic and keen market sense, they were off and running.

“We found a retail space in Kensington and Carolyn said, ‘Let’s go for it!’” said Jodi. “Carolyne quit her job first; I quit mine seven months later.” The pair did all the renovations themselves, and in September of 2004, Crave Cookies and Cupcakes made its debut in the Calgary market.

For several months, the pair ran the business entirely on their own. “Friends and family would come in and help, but basically it was just the two of us. We’d do the baking, open the store, sell the product, close the store,” said Jodi proudly. “We worked from four in the morning till close, seven days a week. We even had a shower in the back, we were there so much!”

But like the saying goes, you reap what you sow, or in this case, you reap what you bake. Crave became a raving success, with people lining up down the street to get their share of the decadent treats!

Today Crave has five stores in Calgary, one in Edmonton, and a new one that opened last fall in Saskatoon. Jodi and Carolyn work side by side in a suite of offices in Calgary’s Beltline. They recently added a kitchen to their head office so they can create, bake and test their own masterpieces onsite. “We source the best ingredients and all are pure and real,” said Jodi. “We use real butter; real whipping cream; we crack every egg one at a time.”

According to Willoughby, she and her sister have no regrets about the hours they have poured into the business. “It makes us truly appreciate every one of our (98) employees. All the positions, all the hard word, we know the demands, we’ve been there, and now we’re one big family.”

Echoes of farm life and the triumph over loss reverberate in all aspects of this family-run business. “Our humble roots have served us well,” said Jodi. “We never take our success for granted, we live for today and appreciate the time we have together, and we are deeply grateful to all the people who have helped us get here.”

Caroline and Jodi at their Willowpark location in Calgary holding their favourite flavour of cupcakes!

-30-

]]> http://routesmagazine.ca/2012/01/livin-the-sweet-life/feed/ 0 http://routesmagazine.ca/2011/12/2214/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2214 http://routesmagazine.ca/2011/12/2214/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:57:27 +0000 admin http://routesmagazine.ca/?p=2214 Zoe Slusar and Bailey Kerluke are thrilled to announce their 6th annual screening event to the community and encourage everyone to come out for an afternoon or evening of free, fun, imaginative, hilarious and entertaining shorts!

DVD’s of all Untitled Productions previous and current works will be for sale at the event at special screening prices and the filmmakers look forward to meeting everyone! For more information: contact@untitledonline.ca

Screening Dates: Tuesday, December 27th at 7:00pm Sheep River Library, Turner Valley, Wednesday December 28th at 5:00pm,

The Plaza Theatre, Kensington, Calgary Thursday, December 29th at 7:00pm

The Stop, Black Diamond,

‘Untitled Productions: A Year Through The Lens’ is an amazing compilation of unique short films produced entirely by Zoe and Bailey throughout 2011. The short films include multiple award winners and International Film Festival Selections. Spanning multiple genres, featuring spectacular cinematography, animation, brilliant writing and memorable characters, it’s going to be a fantastic mix of shorts and the creative variety is sure to keep everyone entertained!

By Pat Fream

Image by Neville Palmer

Q: What exactly is a luthier and what does your craft entail?

A: A luthier (pronounced loo-ti-er) is a maker and repairer of wooden stringed instruments. In the past it meant a maker and repairer of lutes, but today it includes other instruments. Folks who only do repairs usually refer to themselves as repairmen or guitar techs. Those who ‘jig up’ and run small factories cranking out a few models of guitars are light industrialists. Luthiers handcraft individual musical instruments.

Q: Explain how you came to be a luthier, and how one becomes a certified luthier today.

A: In the late 1980s I heard of a guy teaching guitar making on the west coast. I went out and met Michael Dunn, who was teaching at Douglas College in New Westminster and it seemed like a good mix to me. I studied there for two years, and received Certificates of Mastery in Musical Instrument Construction and Musical Instrument Construction-Advanced. Unfortunately that program is no longer running. Most existing ‘lutherie schools’ are short term and sometimes quite expensive.

Q: Are there many of you luthiers around? Or is this a dying art form in the face of mass production?

A: There are quite a few hobbyists, but few who have made the jump to full time. It’s not an easy way to make money. It is a competitive field especially for newcomers and you have to be consistently good and reliable. Often those of us who are doing well, are still not doing well enough that we can afford the loss in productivity that would occur should we take on an apprentice.

Q: What types of stringed instruments do you make?

A: Generally today luthiers make either violin family instruments or fretted instruments like guitars, banjos, mandolins, etc., but not both.  Although I do repairs to violin family instruments including cello and double bass; I only build fretted family instruments.

Q: Such as?

A: I’ve built a few banjos and an F-5 mandolin, but I mostly build guitars. I build fine French Polished, Classical and Flamenco guitars; loud balanced ‘Steel String’ guitars and a very good ‘Acoustic Bass Guitar’. I also specialize in a high performance type of jazz guitar invented by Mario Maccaferri, and played by the great Django Reinhardt.

Q: I’ve heard about an interesting instrument you are building for Calum Graham (profiled in this issue of Routes).

A: Yes, this is the second time I have been commissioned to make a ‘Harp Guitar’ (similar to a ‘Schrammel Guitar’ or ‘Contrabass Guitar’ as built in Vienna in the mid and late 1800s). It will have a normal six string guitar neck but also a number of extra bass strings off the bass side of the neck. I will incorporate things I learned from the earlier Harp Guitar, but this will also be somewhat different. We are pretty happy with the design, and have been talking about materials such as Flamed Maple, possibly with Brazilian Rosewood. I will also use an innovation patented by the great Toronto luthier Linda Manzer, called ‘The Wedge’. Basically the bass side of the instrument will be considerably shallower than the treble side. This makes it easier to bring the right arm over the instrument, making the instrument much more comfortable to play.

Q: What do you like best about your job?

A: That’s difficult to say. I’m very versatile; it’s part of my secret to avoiding a regular job.

I like the challenge of solving new problems and helping people and I enjoy the complexity of repair work. The challenge of designing a new instrument and bringing it all the way to completion and, even to stage performance, is very exhilarating. Restoring someone’s family heirloom violin is also deeply satisfying.

Q: What qualities do you have that make you good at this kind of work?

A: I am very meticulous and have high quality standards. This is a good thing because my customers tend to have high expectations. The required attention to fine detail is not for everybody.

Q: Who have you crafted guitars for? Anyone Famous?

A: Calum Graham is getting a lot of attention and he has a Shifflett ’Flamenco Negra’ (rosewood Flamenco Guitar) I built for him, and George Canyon has a stunning French Polished African Blackwood Classical Guitar of mine. Jim Peace has two custom built Shifflett steel string guitars that I am quite proud of. I have been doing repair work for Ian Tyson for many years, and as well, a lot of repair work for all those sidemen who play with the pros.

Q: Are you commissioned to make instruments? Or do you make your own creations and sell them independently?

A: I almost always work to order, though once in a long while I sneak in a project that I just want to do. In fact I generally don’t do any work for anyone that I don’t want to.

Q: Do you play your instruments? Do you have a spouse or kids who play?

A: Now and then my wife Fay and I enjoy playing a little at our friend Donna’s pub (Gitter’s Pub). My kids are very talented but a little shy.

Q: How many guitars can you make in a year? Enough to make a good living doing this?

A: I make between one and five a year depending on how much repair work there is to do. I would say it’s a steady modest living, but a good life? Oh yes, I think so!

Photo by Neville Palmer. Shifflett built his workshop measuring only 24 x 32 and 25 feet high but has good climate control, is in the side yard of his house in High River. He enjoy his 20 foot daily commute to work.

By Mary Savage

. [19-] Thomas A. Edge Archives & Special Collections 2007.006/187″]

A women, likely Edith Roberts, plowing a field with four horses [Alberta

The memoirs reflect common sentiments of peace, turmoil, joy and discovery – inextricably woven throughout their lives. They speak of a woman’s grief, a daughter’s illness, the loss of family members, the challenges growing up, politics and religion – in Alberta and around the world.

The catalyst, for what is now AWMP, came one afternoon at the University of Alberta campus in 1989 when an older woman stopped in to the then-closing Women’s Resource Centre. Nanci Langford was minding the centre when she arrived and explained that she was moving and had two complete sets of women’s magazines from the ’60s and ’70s that she was either going to donate or dump. Langford urged her to not destroy the publications – an invaluable information source about women’s lives during those turbulent decades. This turn of events caused Langford to single-handedly spearhead the Northern Alberta Women’s Archives Association.

By 2000, Langford had moved her teaching skills to Athabasca University. Cathy Cavanagh, was the department head and together these two women formed a committee of the most knowledgeable instructors in women’s studies, complemented by a selection of capable community members and women’s advocates.

Through the support of Athabasca University, a variety of grants from the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation, Libraries and Archives Canada, and a host of volunteer hours, a website for women’s history now exists.

The AWMP website is the first of its kind in Canada, if not the world, and the collections represent Alberta women from all walks of life – from influential to seemingly ordinary; all with something important to contribute. Some donate to the archives, while others loan their collections for digitizaton only. Either way, materials such as Fanny Makepeace Johnson’s memoir of life at Byemoor, Alberta in 1895 and the blue and white ceramic hashish pipe collected by Helen S. Petersen Bentley while travelling in Asia in 1990, are preserved and accessible.

The AWMP collects memoirs from women of all ages across the province. To learn more or contribute to their collection, visit the AWMP website: http://awmp.athabascau.ca

On November 15, the AWMP is holding a fundraiser at University of Alberta campus in Edmonton.

To purchase tickets, make a donation or volunteer as a southern Alberta member, visit the AWMP website.

Level of challenge: Easy – perfect for kids!

Material:

• Window cling paint in the following colours: gold, white, peach, and crystal clear. Also window cling outliner paint in gold.
• Iridescent glitter
• Stable acetate foil
• Needle – for making holes
• A nylon string – for hanging

Instructions:

1. Photo copy or cut out the angel pattern. Angel craft download PDF
2. Place the acetate foil over the pattern and trace with the gold outliner paint.
3. Let the paint dry roughly 1 hour – till it feels firm.
4. Fill in the areas with the appropriate colors, adding iridescent glitter to the white and clear areas while they are still wet.
5. Let the paint dry for 24 hours in a warm room.
6. Cut out the angel and make a small hole in the top to add a hanging loop.
7. Hang in a window.

They are the unsung heroes – volunteers no less – raising funds for new surgical equipment, critical care items, furniture, beds, and even programs offered at the High River Hospital!

This year the High River Hospital Auxiliary is celebrating its 40 Year Anniversary, a tremendous milestone marking a stupendous feat: nearly $450,000 raised and donated for hospital equipment and projects.

Founded in 1971, a group of 25 High River women started having coffee parties (25 cents a cup) and collecting the funds to apply to much-needed hospital purchases. Today one active founding member remains, Elma Wambeke, who is admired for her ongoing volunteerism at High River Hospital and their philanthropic legacy blazes on, with a steadfast group of volunteers dedicated to raising money for hospital equipment and projects.

How do they do it? They operate the hospital book cart and the gift shop (100 per cent volunteer-run) full of homemade items including baby blankets and quilts. They also have bake sales, fashion shows, raffles, calendar sales, casinos, and a variety of other fundraising events.

What have they funded?  

Here’s just a sampling:

Haematology Analyzer – $75,000

Fetal Monitor - $16,500

I.V. Scanners – $4,500 each

Women’s Clinic – $40,000 toward equipment

Medical Sheepskins – $5,000 each year

Transport Monitor – $14,600

Turnstall for connect care – $12,000

Birthing Bed – $26,000

Cancer Clinic Furniture – $5,600

Bladder Scanner – $15,000

-30-

I feel very honoured to have Calum Graham on the cover of this issue. What an inspiration for all of us. Regardless of how great or small we feel our talents are, in the end, I believe it’s the passion, dedication and effort applied to whatever we set our hearts to, that is the determining factor of success or failure. Determination is certainly a factor for me in getting this magazine to its fourth year and in my new decision to increase Routes from quarterly, to six issues per year. I hope you enjoy having more Routes in your life! And as always, expect great content and outstanding photography. Working primarily with other women, I am also pleased that one of our writers discovered a fascinating website that shares the almost forgotten stories of our hard working, pioneering female ancestors. Also recognizing remarkable men in our midst, we meet Bill Jackson, who finds water with just a stick and intuition, and Chuck Shifflett, who turns raw wood into beautifully crafted instruments. As the holidays approach, I hope you find some time to try a cookie or two from our staff favourites found in the food feature. Also, treat yourself to a quiet meditation, a walk in the park, or a movie with a friend… and… don’t forget your routes!

Locally, he needs no introduction. Mention just his first name in these parts and automatically people know you’re referring to the 20-year-old, bright-eyed, frosted-tipped, wunderkind guitarist, Calum Graham.

Nationally, he has broken ground already, sharing studios with Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, Chantal Kreviazuk (the Chantal Kreviazuk) and – not too shabby either – the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. As he naturally branches into international territory, all that is familiar might be about ­to change.

He can play the guitar like few can on the planet. That’s not an overstatement. Of fans, now-legendary guitarist Don Ross counts himself one; a substantial endorsement considering Ross was Graham’s initial inspiration for learning to finger pick on the guitar.

“It blew my mind that one guitar could make so much sound,” said Graham.

With the admiration of such a big name artist and spades of recent accolades (such as, 2011 Song for Canada contest grand prize winner), there seems only room to grow for the newly budded artist in an understory of musical fame.

But putting it that way is too simple. Too nutshell. For one, it implies destiny. No self-respecting artist in the burgeoning part of his career wants to talk about something that negates tangible measures of hard work. It’s the teleological analogy of an acorn containing all the makings of an oak tree, though not necessarily destined to become one. For Graham, it’s a necessary denial at this stage.

“I think the terrifying parts help keep me in check,” Graham explains about the recent up-shoot in his musical career. An example: it dawned on him one day he was using the same master and mixer for recording his album that Led Zeppelin used. “It’s crazy,” he said, “just the momentum itself.”

Prior to breaking into the limelight, Graham was well tended to; nourished and supported by community, both that of High River and of fellow musicians. He can’t talk about his early guitar years without making two parental footnotes: recalling evenings as he sat at his father’s feet and listened to him strum chords, and crediting his artistic flair to his mother, who paints… with her feet.

Graham knew the guitar would take him far. “I wanted to see the world with a purpose,” he said. “It was always my incentive to play.” From his dad’s few chords, he quickly learned every song by Don Ross. (Tellingly, when Ross first heard Graham, he told the young guitarist: “That’s your ticket.”) And that ticket seems good. His time is now split between home in High River and recording studios in Los Angeles.

If you’ve heard Graham play the guitar, it’s likely you’ve only heard him play the guitar. Whereas – up to now – his guitar did enough singing for the both of them, this new studio album, with the working title, Indivisibility, will feature the artist’s lyrics and voice too. In this sense, the title takes on new meaning, implying his voice and the guitar’s are one and the same.

As he grows, Graham is still searching for that elusive idea of voice, like Zeppelin’s, he said, “you know it’s them.” And he is in good hands. He has a voice coach, Brian Farrell, and manager Neil McGonigle, who, incidentally, also managed Jann Arden. It was McGonigle who had just the right guy in mind in LA, and that guy turned out to be producer CJ Vanston whose tutelage produced Tina Turner and N’Sync.

Graham says that Vanston, acquainted with both the old, “dinosaur” way of music-making and today’s “ready, fire, aim” hyper-marketing method, wants to buck the modern convention of depriving the artist inside the celebrity. While there are plans for an iPhone app to accompany the release of Indivisible, Vanston and Graham both seek to preserve the album as a whole piece of art.

“What usually happens is artists go through a model – like the Britney Spears and Katy Perry stuff. And it works. It sells. But he’s all about the music,” said Graham about Vanston. “Let people come to us.”  

Back home in Alberta, equally passionate artists are chipping in, in one case, literally. Local luthier, Chuck Shifflett, is handcrafting Graham a guitar – a “monster,” Graham calls it – with a harp engrained into its woodwork; a truly unique bit of craftsmanship matched only by the young artist who will play it.

It’s obvious the beginning part is over. No longer bogged down by the torment artists face to get noticed or find their voice, Graham is bursting with ideas of new markets and major artists with which to grow alongside.

“I’m just going to go for it – not letting fear hold me back,”he said, reaffirming the total dedication to a living. “Years down the road I just want to be making music on a bigger scale.”

To wax philosophically one last time, an acorn’s end result might not be a tree. It could just as well be a guitar or dust or, who knows, a star. Graham gets this. It’s what drives him.

***

Graham was the 2011 Song for Canada contest grand prize winner; one of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics’ top artists of Alberta; and winner of the Canadian Youth Talent Competition. The previous winner of that competition was Micheal Bublé.

Watch a Video of CALUM

About getting the shot by Neville Palmer