Trevor Tennant and the Buckhorn Art Festival

One of the most exciting parts of our job here at Pine Ridge Art is our constant search for new artists.  Finding a new artist for one of our calendars is a long journey and often takes us in many different directions.  One of the most enjoyable ways that we look for new artists, however, is getting out into the real world and visiting art shows. 

Deer statue in Buckhorn, ON

While travelling for work is always tough, it’s a little less painful when your business takes you to a picturesque town in a charming country setting, surrounded by natural beauty... namely Buckhorn Ontario. 

Our walk to the festival

Buckhorn is a cultural oasis nestled in the Kawartha Lakes region. The town is home to many art galleries, antique stores and flea markets; and plays host to hundreds of cultural events and attractions throughout the year. This artistic community is site of the annual Buckhorn Fine Art Festival, recognized as one of Canada’s premiere Art Festivals, and happily a great place to look for new calendar artwork!   The festival also features an art competition, youth art display as well as live music and great food. 

Musicians set-up in an outdoor pavillion

One of our main reasons for this trip was a visit with wildlife artist Trevor Tennant, who makes his home in the nearby Town of Bobcaygeon.

Trevor poses for a picture near the Buckhorn Fine Art Festival

For anyone familiar with Trevor’s artwork, his love of the outdoors is obvious.  It was impossible not to share his sentiments while immersed in the natural beauty near his home.  The area offers lakes and waterways, hiking trails, and an abundance of birds and wildlife, and it was easy to see where Trevor gets his inspiration. It was great to catch up with our “Window on Wildlife” artist, and during our visit Trevor was kind enough to give us a preview of one of his newest works.

For more information about Trevor and his work visit www.trevortennant.com, and you can purchase Trevor’s calendar at www.pineridgeart.com.

One last note on the town of Buckhorn before we wrap up.  If you're ever in need of accomodations in the area, the charming Claire de Lune Bed and Breakfast makes a great choice (www.clairedelune.ca).  The owners Claire and Rod were great hosts and the food was wonderful!!!

Claire and Rod at the Bed and Breakfast

So all in all, Buckhorn was a great trip.  Our job keeps us pretty busy, but in case you haven’t got the message....we’re not really complaining.

Show Season

Whew! This past month has been extremely busy here at Pine Ridge Art. The last quarter of 2010 was spent busily assembling our 2012 catalog for a January launch, and just when we thought we could take a break – its show season! Vendors and retailers alike spend the early part of the year clamouring to get prepared for their 2011 selling/shopping – and let me tell you, a gift show is not quite the same as an afternoon at the mall. The Pine Ridge Art team attended two winter shows this year. We flew to Texas for the Dallas Total Home and Gift Market, and set-up our own booth in Toronto at the CGTA January Gift Show.

show set-up day in Dallas - it didn't stay this empty for long

I had never been to the Dallas show before and let me tell you, it was quite a spectacle. With three Buildings, 15 floors, and over 20,000 gift and decorative accessory product lines for buyers to peruse, its quite an overwhelming experience. Pine Ridge Art was represented for the first time at the Dallas show in the Keith Smith Ltd. showroom.


Keith Smith Ltd. Showroom

 A small selection of our products were displayed in order to provide a sneak peek into our line, but the main point of the trip was to get to know all of the great people at Keith Smith Ltd.

Pine Ridge Art Sneak Peek

 It was a great start to our partnership and we’re looking forward to a busy year in Texas (West to New Mexico, East to Mississippi, North to Iowa, and everything in between).

The CGTA Gift Show is a very different experience for Pine Ridge Art, because it’s our home base. We spend the week before the show setting up our whole product line and prepping for our biggest order taking time of the year.


Pine Ridge Art CGTA Show Booth

New Coasters/Desk Calendars

It’s great to meet all of our customers in person and see what’s new and exciting in the world of gifts. We were thrilled to show off our new lines of Coasters, Art Boutique Desk Calendars, Thermal Travel Mugs, not to mention our brand new 2012 line of Wall Calendars, Vertical Calendars, Desk Calendars, Agendas, and Magnetic Calendars. With so much exciting product to display, it was tough just fitting everything in.

Now that show season has come to a close we can finally take a breath....at least until the Spring shows start.....

CGTA Toronto Gift Show PREVIEW

The CGTA Fall 2010 Toronto Gift Show is fast approaching!

The show runs from Sunday, August 8th through Thursday, August 12th, at the Toronto International Centre and the Toronto Congress Centre.  It's a very exciting time of year for Pine Ridge Art, as well as our retail customers. The Toronto Gift Show is Canada's largest giftware and home decor show.  The show will feature 1,000 exhibitors and will host nearly 16,000 qualified retail buyers! 

The spotlight will be on the newest and most innovative gift items just hitting the market place.  Many different product categories will be featured including tabletop items, housewares, gourmet food, garden accessories, collectibles, handmade items, stationery, home décor, bath, bed and linen products.

It's a great time for us to show off all our brand new products, and to get valuable feedback on ideas that we've been busy working on over the last several months.  It's also a fantastic opportunity to check out what else is going on in the industry. 

Here's the complete show information:

Fall 2010 Toronto Gift Show

Sunday, August 8th - Thursday, August 12, 2010

Toronto International Centre and the Toronto Congress Centre

Sunday, August 8- 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Monday, August 9 - 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. * EXTENDED HOURS

Tuesday, August 10- 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. * EXTENDED HOURS

Wednesday, August 11 - 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Thursday, August 12- 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Pine Ridge Art Booth # 3163

Please note that the show is exclusively open to retailers. 

Although the show doesn't begin for 2 weeks, we wanted to give you a sneak peek into what we'll be exhibiting at the show. We're very excited about our new line up of Art Boutique and Pine Ridge Art guest books and matching upscale art pens.  This beautiful image of two doves would make a perfect wedding guestbook, and the pen is a perfect compliment.  The pen, which is sold and gift boxed separately, could also be given as a gift on its own! 

We'll  be showing brand new Pine Ridge Art images on new matchbook notepads, journals, and address books,  as well as eight brand new Art Boutique travel mugs. 

 This adorable mug features the uplifting message "Happiness has a way of travelling" and will be hitting stores soon. 

For those of you wishing to get more information about the CGTA Toronto Gift Show, click this link to be redirected to the show's website. 

Toronto Gift Show Website

Hope to see you there!

National Stationery Show and Surtex - Suzy Ultman

On May 16th, 17th and 18th, the Pine Ridge Art and Art Boutique teams traveled to New York City for the National Stationery Show and Surtex, an art licensing show. These two shows run in conjunction with one another at the beautiful light-filled space of the Javits Center sitting on the Hudson river in Manhattan.

(the entrance to the Javits Center)

The National Stationery show is always fun to walk around and visit. Brimming with new companies and products, the show is a very inspiring experience. This year we found that it was busier than in previous years and seemed to have lots of new companies and expanded booths. With the past couple of years being very hard on this industry, it was nice to see an upbeat crowd in attendance.

Surtex is where we go to do business though. We find the art for our products in a variety of places; from word-of-mouth recommendation, online, fine art shows, and through licensing agents at the Surtex show. We met with a number of the artists we already work with and it is always great to catch up. We have lots of pictures and stories to share, but to get started we'll talk about our meeting at the Lilla Rogers booth with artist Suzy Ultman.

(Art Boutique artist Suzy Ultman stands in front of her display at the Lilla Rogers booth) 

Suzy was born in Pennsylvania but has lived on three continents. Her travels have influenced her style allowing her to take inspiration from various cultural communities and infuse them into her work. Now living north of Boston, Suzy enjoys incorporating nature's palettes and textures into her designs. She creates illustrations, surface patterns and product designs (such as that adorable plushy pictured above). We were delighted to find out that Suzy's products with Art Boutique were her first licensing project. Well loved, Suzy's Crafty Owl collection is an adorable spin on the popular owl motif.

 
















We were excited to meet Suzy and learn more about some of the projects she's been involved with since then. She's created great products for Chronicle Books and Madison Park Greetings among others.  We love her fun and funky style so we also used another of her images to create our "Every Day is Earth Day" Tea-for-One set.

 
















We talked with Suzy about our upcoming projects and products (of course, these are top secret and we can't share!) and what sort of iconography Canadians respond to, and shared a giggle about us Canucks actually liking some of the images we see as stereotypically "Canadian" like canoes and beavers. Suzy was a joy to talk to and we wish we could have stayed longer, but there is so much to see at Surtex and time is tight.

It is a treat to meet face to face with an artist because you learn so much about their personality. It is always amazing to see how a personality translates into an artistic style and Suzy's outgoing, sunny personality  is certainly reflected in her designs.

Read Suzy's Blog by clicking here.
Follow Suzy on Twitter by clicking here.
Shop for Suzy Ultman's Art Boutique products by clicking here.

Rosalie & Friends Announcement

Check out some recent Press about Pine Ridge Art announcing our new showroom in the LA Mart, Rosalie & Friends. We were lucky enough to attend the California Gift Show this past weekend and what a great experience. Rosalie & Friends will be great partners for us on the west coast.

January News

This month is busy busy! Trade shows accompany the launch of our new 2011 catalogue! It seems endless but it also leaves us feeling invigorated and excited for the year ahead.

We'll be showing in Toronto at the end of the month at the CGTA Gift Show (January 31-Feb 4 2010). It's our biggest show of the season, with 2 complete showrooms running simultaneously, both at the Accent Imports booth and our corporate showroom as well. We'll also be visiting the Atlanta and LA shows to train our many road representatives in the "TOLA" area and beyond.

For the first time we are showing in the Rosalie & Friends showroom in the LA mart, suite 750. Hope you'll pop in to see us!

Also new this year is a separate Art Boutique by Pine Ridge Art catalogue, that features all of this new exciting product in its own book!

(This product is also included in our main catalogue pictured at top.)

Best of all, our new website, http://www.pineridgeart.com/ has finally launched! Pop over for a visit to see whats new. There is more to come as some areas are under construction, but it looks great and we're happy to keep moving on the development. Hope you enjoy what you see and check back soon for more PRA news!