MC x Village Brewery

This winter, we are proud to launch our collaborative project with Village Brewery featuring 24 local Alberta artists curated by Market Collective. The MC Artist Series can be found in the Village Square Winter Variety Pack which includes the Blacksmith, Blonde, Bobby, and Neighbour. Thank you to each of the amazing artists who designed the beautiful labels and for contributing to Alberta's vibrant creative community.

Adrian Martinus was founded by two brothers Adrian and Martinus Pool. These Calgary based woodworkers build furniture, housewares, and art out of recycled wood. Many of their pieces feature complex and colourful designs created by using old skateboards. The two embrace the varied nature of reclaimed wood and incorporate it into their design philosophy of “Modern Sustainability.” Each piece is unique, personal, and highlights the value of craftsmanship.

Anna-Lise Schmidt is a ceramic artist working and living in Calgary, Alberta. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Emily Carr University in Vancouver in 2013, Schmidt returned to Calgary to focus on her practice. Her work has an organic quality, with glazes referencing landscapes and colours found in nature as well as quirky anthropomorphic forms. Some of the animals you will see referenced in her work include cat eared dishes, flamingo pots, and llama planters. Schmidt states that she is drawn to clay as a medium because of its multifaceted process, from designing and tests to the physical preparation and forming.

Bec Kilpatrick is an illustrator and photographer based in Calgary, Alberta. Originally from the sugarcane fields of Byron Bay, Australia, Bec is recognized for her intricate and fluid artworks exploring flora, fauna and landscapes that surround her. She draws inspiration from traveling to new destinations, camping, hiking, and exploring our connections to the wild. Her illustrations are a unique mix of traditional and digital techniques, combining the mediums of graphite, watercolour, and digital editing.  

Camp Brand Goods hails from the foothills of the Canadian Rockies and you can find their products keeping people warm around evening bonfires, under the diamond filled night sky and inside your favourite mountain town taverns. Whether it's a summertime bike ride, a lazy Sunday morning walk with man's best friend, or a weekend in the mountains, you can trust Camp to keep you comfortable wherever you choose to go.

Chris Pecora is mountain town export, making stuff in Calgary. His favourite things to work on are illustrations, logos, and plenty of miscellaneous side projects just for kicks. When he’s not busy making things, he’s probably riding his bike, listening to baseball on the radio, or injuring himself trying to install an appliance.

Caitlin Bodewitz is a mixed-media printmaker who explores a juxtaposition of nature and geometry, seeking a balance between different realms. She pushes the boundaries of traditional printmaking by incorporating drawings and photo transfers with silkscreening onto birch wood. Her creative pursuit is strongly rooted in her unique upbringing in the secluded mountain community of Powder King, BC.  Her art practice strives to celebrate and educate the public about the beauty, significance, and conservation of our wildlife and landscapes. All of her themes, materials, and processes reflect a conscious effort to be environmentally mindful while exploring the land we all walk.

For the last 17 years Cory Nespor been carrying around a Moleskine notebook (currently in edition #18) that he has asked people to write in. It’s been random and messy but somewhere along the line the books took on a life of their own; full of amazing insight and inspiration. In 2009, a move to New Zealand fundamentally shifted Cory’s life, giving him a chance to reset and focus on the potential of the books.

“I was so inspired, I had to paint. My purpose in life has become painting the words that you have shared and I hope by making these friendly reminders more prominent in our day-to-day lives, we all walk just a little bit taller.”

daniel j kirk is a Calgary-based visual artist. Trained as a painter at the University of Calgary, his work now manifests as public intervention, performance and mural painting. Daniel's work plays with public and private designation as he develops a social, art-making practice.

In 2014, Daniel co-founded Blank Page Studio, a space for developing ideas and supports innovative practices in art, architecture, design, and culture.

Evidence of Kirk’s public commissions and private works can now be found throughout Canada and the United States as well as Central America and Turkey.

Elyse Bouvier is an Alberta photographer, artist, and documentarian with a Master's of Fine Art in Documentary Media from Ryerson University (2016). She also holds a B.Comm from Mount Royal University (2010). Her work explores identities of communities, particularly in rural Alberta, and relationships between memory and place, with a particular fascination with how food intersects with cultural identity.

Gypsy Skulls was founded by the Calgarian born and raised Ayla Graham. Adding a modern twist to a traditional art which Ayla learned from her grandmother, Gypsy Skulls has grown from a procrastination project to an amazing local business.

“Creating for me is an outlet. It affords me the opportunity to let go and just be in that moment and see what happens. Sometimes the results are terrible and I love that just as much. It always provides a good laugh. Sometimes, you create the most beautiful thing in the world and I can hardly believe that this creation came from me. Each piece is an expression of me in some way and I love that people identify with that.”

Jarett Sitter’s mixed media illustrations delve deep into the dreamlike and the fantastical, with outsider themes being a common thread within his work. His illustrations mix ink and digital mediums, being an animator as well, these illustrations are often given life within video. He has created artwork for a wide variety of projects including, posters, editorial illustrations, magazine covers, music festival promo material, public art installations and many music videos. In past years videos he has been involved with have been nominated for awards including a Juno Award for Best Video of the Year, and multiple Much Music Video Awards.

Snow Alligator is an line of charming and whimsical products for your home and for your kids. Including colourful prints, books, models, toys and home decor.  Snow Alligator is the creation of freelance Illustrator Jason Blower, who strives to create products that bring a smile to your face and a warm fuzzy feeling in your chest.

John F. Gerrard was born and raised in Calgary and has enjoyed making art here for a number of years. He paints and draws, but also enjoys photography and design. He believes that there is something about painting and drawing that is fundamental to us as humans and that it is a privilege to explore it.

John’s drawings highlight the beauty of irregular line and explore repetition. His paintings are complicated compositions that celebrate the character of paint. He enjoys creating the illusion of movement in his work and tries to find a goldilocks zone between something photographic or literal and the world of expressive mark making.

Graduating with distinction from the University of Calgary's BFA program, Katie Green's work has exhibited in galleries such as Contemporary Calgary (MOCA), The Nickle, TRUCK, and Art Point Gallery. Her burgeoning body of mural work can be seen internationally in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Berlin, and Taiwan and was undertaken both independently and in collaboration with a number of collectives, non-profit organizations and local communities.

Her practice addresses nature as a crossroad for developing concepts of growth, death, adaptation, cooperation, and perhaps most importantly, our emotional and physical selves. More than something to be understood and subjectified, for her nature is a space and opportunity for questioning.

Kim Smith is an illustrator from Calgary, Alberta.  Kim mostly works in children’s books but has also has created illustrations for games, apps, editorial, and animation. Most of her print work is inspired by Alberta's great outdoors and other places she's traveled. Apart from illustrating, she enjoys spending time outside, getting inspiration for new work, digging through antique shops, and going on adventures with her husband and border terrier, Whisky.  

Calgary-born artist and illustrator, KIᎯᎡᎡᎯ  ᎯLBINᎯ, works within and between the disciplines of drawing, painting, traditional animation, tattoo, comics, book making, and sound. Both a solitary and collaborating culture worker, she reintroduces nature, magic, and notions of wildness, unbridled play and heart-centeredness in an aim to authentically share her human experience with her community. Her work has been exhibited and her films screened in artist-run centres, galleries, music venues and festivals throughout Western Canada, London, Ontario, Montréal and Vienna. She recently exhibited a suite of drawings in a solo show at Campbell River Art Gallery titled Amulet, which was an exploration into ceremonial portraiture and spellwork.

Lindsay Derer is a Communications professional, avid painter, photographer, and pop-culture enthusiast currently residing in Calgary. Initially using painting as a means of decompressing, she has now grown to enjoy expressing her passion for music and culture through her art. Drawing inspiration from hip-hop music, street art, and captivating photographic imagery, Lindsay appreciates seeing the beauty in simplicity. She hopes to share this enjoyment with those around her through her artwork.

Mandy Stobo is a Visual Artist and works with big color, large canvas, contemporary Canadiana and the creator of Bad Portraits. From watercolour captures, to live projection performance, illustration to Virtual Reality, if it's possible to create with, she's all in.

Matt Lowden is in love with the outdoors, jumping over fences to get his favourite photo, and making bad jokes. You’ll find him having a blast capturing the super special moments in people's lives, along with more casual shots of our amazing backyard with all the natural light, mountains and trees we have in Alberta. Matt is traditionally trained from Alberta College of Art and Design, but is always trying to break the mold and simply show the beauty of our planet to people across the world.

A.V. Wakefield is the professional photographer and the designer behind North Birch Grove™, a fine art home decor brand + digital content development company based in Canmore in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. With both a strong fine art and advertising skill-set in image creation, A.V. work with brands and agencies worldwide to create honest and beautiful content in breathtakingly unique landscapes both here at home and abroad. It is through the use of her images in both digital and in home décor form that she is able to inspire others to pursue a deeper connection to their place in the outdoors.

Philip Kanwischer is a Calgarian artist currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts degree in Halifax. Philip's work thrives on the cursory glance; assembling hyperreal yet unlikely vignettes. He creates eerie and fantastical photomontages revolving around human intervention. Often subverting the roles of humans, animals and their environments in surreal and challenging imagery. Philip is an outdoorsman and is interested in environmental ethics and human impact on both urban and natural spaces - as is reflected in his artistic practice.

Plant was first founded by Kyle and Erika Chow in 2011. Based on the belief that we should all bring a little more of the outside in, Plant is here to help re-connect people with the natural world, and to inspire them to build and maintain more beautiful spaces. Plant is a shop for the curious, the creative, the passionate, and the innovative.

Meet Alison Hui, the artist and designer behind The Paper Lover Co. Alison’s childhood dream of starting her own stationery brand became true in 2015 and she couldn’t have been more excited. She found peace in drawing and crafting, and she especially loves drawing animals and cityscapes. Her style is fun and playful, which is why you can always find vibrant colors in her illustrations and 3D art.

“Calgary is such a wonderful place that allows me to share my work and meet with many different talented humans, I can't wait to explore more opportunities ahead!”

To date, Van Charles’ body of work narrates an authentic adventure through the Canadian wilderness. Equipped with a backpack and a camera, Van Charles travels through the Canadian backcountry to capture images of nature that will later be digitally collaged, applied to hand crafted wooden supports and detailed with acrylic paint.

Portraits and Bottle Photos by Diane + Mike Photography