Tag Archives: Design

Chad Hiltz’s Awesome Re-Imagined ’34 DeSoto

September 29, 2019 By in Nova Scotia, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 37 Comments

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While I often highlight notable visual artists, I’m sure most of us appreciate that artistic creativity is expressed in many forms.  Case in point is Chad Hiltz, who has carved out a distinctive niche creating all manner of custom vehicles.  While he’s done his share of classic car restorations, where Hiltz really shines is using the old bones and other raw material of a rusty jalopy and making that into something that was previously nowhere else but in his imagination.

An excellent example of Hiltz’s work is his take on a delivery truck for Noggins Corner Farm Market and Cider Company, a local farm market and cider company in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, which is where I crossed paths with  Hiltz’s spiffy creation on a recent weekend drive.  I pulled over and snapped a few shots and then made a note to find out about the backstory.  The curves, the styling, the double rear axles, and so much more about this one-of-a-kind street rod are all inspiring!   I don’t know all the details for this build but the starting point was the body of a 1934 DeSoto Airflow sedan, a car that when introduced was noted for its then-innovative aerodynamic design.  Hiltz took that foundation and elongated it and then reinterpreted what that car might be if it were a truck.  The results are outstanding.

Hiltz operates Hiltz Auto Co. in Canning, N.S. and has parlayed his creative skills into a Discovery Channel – Canada show called “Bad Chad Customs”.   His Facebook page has additional photos showing the progress of his work on this Noggins Cider delivery truck.

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Similar Posts on O’Canada:

~ Cool Vintage Junkyard For Sale

~ Backroads Nova Scotia: Old Chevy Truck

~ Broke-Down Dodge Truck

James Fowler’s Wonderful Geometric Cityscapes

August 24, 2019 By in Art, New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec Tags: , , , , , , , 31 Comments

James Fowler “The Village, Toronto” (2017)

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James Fowler’s non-traditional landscape paintings perfectly merge broad aerial-like vistas with a strong geometric and digital sensibility.  His artwork hints at the methods of the nineteenth century pointillists and, of more contemporary vintage, Chuck Close’s “pixellated” portrait paintings.    The result in Fowler’s talented hands and imagination is a distinctive abstract style of landscape that is slightly whimsical and very impressive.

As this Toronto-based artist notes on his websites’s artist statement, the idea, partly, is to convey the “lively feelings one gets when flying into a new big city for the first time, when we try to take everything in, or the lasting impressions stored in our memories of traveling anywhere far from home.”  Well said!  And he’s done this with cities throughout Canada, the United States and across the world, as indicated by the small sampling noted here.

More of Fowler’s vibrant work can be seen on his website here and on his Twitter feed here.

James Fowler, “8Bit Montreal” (2017)

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James Fowler, “San Francisco” (2016)

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James Fowler, “Quebec City” (2019)

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James Fowler, “Fredericton” (2018)

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James Fowler, “Downtown, Kansas City” (2019)

 

(Image Credits: James Fowler)

 

Similar Posts on O’Canada:

• Artist to Appreciate: Katharine Burns

• Elyse Dodge’s Imaginative Geometric Landscapes

• Artist to Appreciate: Miyoshi Kondo

 

Manhole Covers Roundabout Saint John

August 11, 2019 By in Art, New Brunswick, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , 44 Comments

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Another installment of these cast iron circles, this time from Saint John, New Brunswick.

Hard to say for certain, but I found this group a bit grittier than those in other places.

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Similar Posts on O’Canada:

> Halifax’s Manhole Covers

> Creativity Afoot!: Toronto’s Varied Manhole Covers

> Manhole Covers of Quebec City

 

Eric Goggin’s Inviting Travel Posters of Atlantic Canada and Beyond

September 7, 2018 By in Art, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Tags: , , , , , , , 53 Comments

Travel posters at their best showcase memorable places in distinctive ways as well as the talent of remarkable artists.  A case in point is the beautiful series of travel posters by Salisbury, New Brunswick-based graphics designer Eric Goggin.  The stylized design, bright colors and buoyant fonts are all fun.  Many of Goggin’s posters have a pleasing vintage feel to them and focus on locations throughout Atlantic Canada.

While well-known cities and areas, such as Gros Morne, St. Andrews By the Sea, Cape Breton and the Bay of Fundy, are featured, Goggin also directs some of his artistry to lesser-known but still picturesque locales, including Cape Forchu, N.S., Shediac, N.B., and Cavendish, P.E.I.  Of course, because they are travel posters they fulfill their principal purpose by inviting curiosity and wonder about the places depicted and make the viewer itch to get on the road to see these sites.

You can see more of Goggin’s terrific poster designs on his DestinationArt website here.

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Eric Goggin, Shediac

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(Images Credit: Eric Goggin)

Similar posts on O’Canada:

¤ Cameron Stevens’ Vintage-Style Canada Parks Posters

¤ Magnificent Travel Art of the Canadian Pacific Railway

¤ Retro Winter Recreation and Travel Ads

Islandmania!

September 5, 2018 By in Art, Nova Scotia, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , 13 Comments

Graffiti At Ferry Terminal, Freeport, Long Island, N.S.

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Way out in the country you don’t often see graffiti, and certainly not the artistic variety. So this painted statement near one of Nova Scotia’s most remote ferry terminals (in Freeport, Long Island) stood out for its vivid colors, its possibly enthusiastic statement about its location, and the fact that it took someone more than a little time to complete this.

Similar posts on O’Canada:

Θ Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 3 – Designs)

Θ “Three Things . . .”

Θ Wall Art a la Montreal

Vintage Magic in PEI: Ice Boat Rarities and Island Uniquities

June 16, 2018 By in Art, History, Photography, Prince Edward Island Tags: , , , , , , , , 35 Comments

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Not far from the Confederation Bridge on the Prince Edward Island side of that engineering marvel a scenic backroad leads to the cozy town of Cape Traverse and two of the best antique shops in all of Canada’s Maritime Provinces: Ice Boat Rarities and Antiques and, its sister shop, Island Uniquities and Antiques, which is just a few hundred yards away down PEI Route 10.   Both shops are housed in 19th century buildings — one an old church  and another a former masonic lodge — that have been masterfully restored and updated by owners Larry and Jane Dugdale.

The exceptional assortment of antiques, curios, artwork and furniture on offer started as a personal collection of the owners that eventually morphed into the well-organized groupings that seem intentionally curated for visual delight.  The Ice Boat building features the former church’s simply designed but stunning original red, blue, green and yellow stained glass windows, which cast a warm, luminous glow throughout the place.  These shops deserve to be called galleries as much as anything else.

If you’re into stylish old or reclaimed furniture, these shops have you covered; automotive and industrial neon, check; vintage toys, thermometers, oil cans, model boats, duck decoys, postcards and ephemera, tools or farm implements, check to all that too — and a great deal more!  Of particular note is the collection of whimsical painted wood sculptures and other artworks by noted PEI folk artist, Kerras Jeffery, who sadly passed away last year at way too young of an age after battling a long illness.  The Ice Boat Rarities shop serves as almost a museum of some of his brightly colored pieces and the shop also features a marvelous cloud-painting by Jeffery on the ceiling of its largest room.

In addition, the staff in both places are super friendly and helpful and the prices are about the fairest I’ve seen for antique shops anywhere.  These places are definitely worth a visit if you find yourself nearby.

More information about these terrific shops can be found at their respective Facebook pages here: Iceboat Rarities and Island Uniquities.  More about Kerras Jeffery and his art is available on the Backroad Folkart blog here, which was formerly written by him and is now maintained by one of his relatives.

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Similar posts on O’Canada:

♥  Cool Vintage Junkyard for Sale

♥  An A++ for Toronto’s Gadabout Vintage

♥  Fred Herzog’s Vintage Vancouver

Shades of Toronto Graffiti (Part 3- Designs)

April 7, 2018 By in Art, Ontario, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , 53 Comments

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On the walls of Toronto some of the street art exhibits strong elements of design, such as these examples. I especially like the piece just above, which is painted on a piece of plywood tacked onto the side of a building.

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Weathered Blue Barn

November 5, 2017 By in History, Nova Scotia, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , 41 Comments

Rustic Old Barn, Phinney’s Cove, N.S.

Aside from its overall weathered appearance and striking shades of blue, this barn stands out for its second-story house-style doors and its slightly asymmetrical design with an upper window thrown in for good measure.

Vintage / Mod Design: The City Bus

January 16, 2017 By in Alberta, British Columbia, History, Ontario, Photography, Quebec, Society Tags: , , , , , , 22 Comments

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City Bus on Vancouver Street (about mid-1950s)

Distinctive industrial design reveals itself in many ways and, when done well, can be a genuine pleasure to take in.   While the specialness of such design is often difficult to see in our contemporary surroundings, its otherwise subtle impact jumps out when looking back at vintage images. A case in point: the humble municipal bus, operated in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and other cities across Canada.  Over this period theses buses began to display a very mod sensibility as they evolved from the severe boxiness of earlier 1930s and 1940s versions to later, during the 1950s through the 1970s, being adorned with more rounded contours, sleek curves and very stylized lines and chrome elements.

Mod Design: Vintage Postcards of Expo 67

July 9, 2016 By in Art, History, Quebec, Society Tags: , , , , , , 40 Comments

Forest Pavilion

Canada Forestry and Paper Pavilion

With the Rio Summer Olympics being just around the corner this prompted me to ponder the differences between the Olympics and the World Fairs.  While both are cultural showcases that bring together people of many nations to good-naturedly preen about their countries, World Fairs seem more ad hoc than the more structured, media spectacle of the Olympics.

Coinciding with Canada’s centennial in 1967, Montreal hosted what is considered to be one of the most successful World Fairs, which was the first to adopt the “Expo” moniker by which all subsequent World’s Fairs have been named.  As attested by these postcards, the various national pavilions at Expo 67 served as grand displays for then cutting-edge, very “mod” design and innovation.

Kaleidoscope Pavilion
Great Britain Pavilion 1
Great Britain Pavilion 2
Canada Pavilion 1
International Scout Center
Cuba Pavilion
Ontario Pavilion
France Pavilion 1
India Pavilion
Canada Pavilion 2
Quebec Pavilion
France Pavilion 2
Man in the Community Pavilion
New York Pavilion
Polymer Pavilion
Overhead Cable Cars
U.S. Pavilion
USSR Pavilion
Venezuela and Ethiopia Pavilions
Yugoslavia Pavilion
Habitat

Seeing Red

June 14, 2015 By in Art, Photography Tags: , , , , , 50 Comments

While recently browsing through some of my Canada photos I was struck by how often the color red made an appearance.  In our visual vocabulary red adds drama and impact in many ways, as this sampling across different regions of Canada highlights.

Dockside, Lunenberg, N.S.
Vintage Car, Kensington Neighborhood, Toronto
St. Lawrence Market, Toronto
Heart Box, in Vintage Store, Toronto
Massey Harris Tractor, Northville Farm Heritage Center, N.S.
Canadian Flag, Lunenberg, N.S.
Luckett Vineyards, Wolfville, N.S.
Gaspereau Valley, N.S.
Red Chairs, Lunenberg, N.S.
Old Spice Jars, in Vintage Store, Toronto
Seaside Barn, Shelburne, N.S.
Red Sprigs Among the Rocks, Kejimkujik Seaside, N.S.
Red Scarecrow, Cap Le Moine, Cape Breton, N.S.
Tractor Along the St. Lawrence, Charlevoix Region, Quebec
Quebec City Hydrant,Quebec
Stop Sign, Montreal
Sainte Famille Church, Ile d’Orlean
Red and Grey Barn, Ile d’Orleans, Quebec
Fran’s Restaurant, Toronto

Neighborly Toronto!

August 1, 2014 By in Art, Ontario, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , 28 Comments

The mosaic or melting pot, as you prefer, that is Toronto is notably defined by its many distinct neighborhoods.  By the time I realized I was working on a theme with these signage shots I had already overlooked about a dozen or so too many feet-miles earlier to readily retrace my steps.

 

Mel’s Tea Room and More . . . Sackville, New Brunswick

January 11, 2014 By in Art, New Brunswick Tags: , , , , , , , 25 Comments

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Mel’s Tea Room, Sackville, New Brunswick

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These classic old signs and doorway tiles stood out on a recent stop in the historic town of Sackville, New Brunswick.  The neon and styling of the sign for Mel’s Tea Room — a local diner that is authentically vintage — in particular harkens back to an earlier era.

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wwDSC_9386Sackville Bowling, Sackville, New Brunswick

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wwDSC_9388Tiled Store Entryway, Sackville, New Brunswick

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