The Spring Bird Count on May 11th kicks off our season in Tamworth. Please join us at SCFF for this annual count of birds. Yes it’s Mother’s day and you are welcome to bring your mum, and you can wander the property keeping your eyes and ears open for all you may see and hear. Then share the birds you find with the eBird app. We will also be collecting the list for the day and uploading it. Please register by emailing us at admin@scff.ca so that we know to expect you. This is a free and fun event.
Two workshops are planned that will cover boxmaking and experimental folded artist’s books, including a potential for collage and alternative printing techniques to create contents for binding.
Boxmaking – July 5-6
Over the weekend we will address the construction of box formats leading to a hinged, clamshell-style box. Covering technique will be explained and practiced.
Experimental Artist’s Books – July 25-27
Various options for making folded artist’s books will be presented and the group may decide to focus on particular techniques. Participants are encouraged to bring visual materials to work with or collect them onsite. A photocopier may be used to create pages or acetates for blueprinting. Sewing and gluing will be simple and appropriate for those without binding experience, while more complex approaches can be selected by those looking to develop more advanced skills.
If you are interested in attending a workshop, please contact us at workshops@scff.ca. Participants may arrive on Friday to stay the weekend at SCFF or arrive for each day’s session. Registration and accommodation arrangements will be posted in the near future.
Two photography workshops are planned for 2025, along with book-related ones that may be of interest to photographers. Registration information will be posted soon.
Seeing Black and White: The Zone System – July 21-23
Matsudera walk – Temple Garden
This workshop will cover practical aspects of black and white photography, based on the Zone System methods of understanding light and exposure. Addressing both digital and film photography, this approach allows for previsualization of the grey values of the image, resulting in improved negatives and digital files that are closer to what one sees in the mind. Participants may work with digital and/or film processes. Exercises and photography will take place around the farm and digital results will be reviewed onsite. Film work will be processed later on your own time, but may be evaluated through online sharing.
Peter Sramek learned the Zone System when studying at MIT from Minor White, author of the original Zone System Manual, and then taught black and white photography at OCAD University for over 40 years.
Natural Inventions – Staging in the landscape – Sept. 5-7
Stone Alignment, Shibagau Creek, Peter Sramek, 2024
Similar to last year’s land-based workshop, we invite photographers and non-photographers alike, to engage with the land in constructing site-specific assemblages using natural materials and then photograph them. The image remains as a record of what will inevitably change and fade in the landscape. Over the weekend we will use alternative printing methods to turn digital images into tangible prints.
Workshop participants with co-instructor Walter Bergmoser, August 2024
If you are interested in attending a workshop, please contact us at workshops@scff.ca. Participants may arrive on Friday to stay the weekend at SCFF or arrive for each day’s session. Registration and accommodation arrangements will be posted in the near future.
At a one-day workshop in January, with 5 of us at the Sydenham Library, we went through the process of folding, gluing and trimming the binding which has no sewing, which opens up flat and can use a variety of materials for the spine and the board covers. The binding is attributed to American master binder Tim Ely. Peter learned boxmaking and gold leafing from Tim in workshops and boxmaking is high on the wishlist for this summer’s binding adventures.
Working with Walter Bergmoser and Peter Sramek, the workshop participants explored image-making with collaged natural materials exposed in the bright sunlight onto cyanotype paper and regular silver photo paper.
An introduction to the concept of art and interventions in nature supported by watching the documentary film of Andy Goldsworthy’s site-specific works, led to participants creating works in the forest and the creek bed. Enlarged acetate negatives were used to print images as cyanotypes and also for experiments in exposing directly onto large tree leaves of various kinds.
This summer series of workshops introduced making books by hand, covering basic techniques of folding and sewing books without glue and moving on to historical sewing formats appropriate for a wide range of art and bookmaking projects. They were held in Kingston at the Tett Centre and at the Sydenham Library and Heron Point on Eel Lake.
August 9-11 Handbound Artists’ Books: Introduction to Non-adhesive Binding Structures $300. plus accommodation if required ($175)
This workshop intensive introduced a range of basic sewn structures and each person made a range of samples over the weekend.
Sydenham Library, Ontario and Heron Point on Eel Lake – August 2024
Learn how to easily create small, decorative blank books and later assemble your own contents into book form. This workshop will cover basic folding and sewing of small sample bindings, covering a range appropriate for newcomers to book making: single section pamphlets and stab sewings, albums and multi-section formats with paper covers. Only basic hand tools are required and all materials will be provided. Bring your lunch.
Linkstitch and Album Binding Structures This workshop will cover two (or more if we have time) formats adapted from historical bindings which allow for the creation of multi-section books. Decorative spine sewings, as well as a format appropriate for use as albums with inserted contents will be constructed. Once again, we will make a number of blank books with paper covers. This workshop will follow well from the skills covered in the Introduction day. Only basic hand tools are required and all materials will be provided. Bring your lunch.
In conjunction with the Nature Conservancy of Canada we are inviting you to join us on the August long weekend for our second BioBlitz at Shibagau Creek.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada is calling for its annual countrywide BioBlitz on the August long weekend and we invite you to participate with us.
"It is the NCC's intention to unite thousands of people across Canada in a collective community effort to celebrate and document the diverse species across our beautiful country. Bioblitzes are a community-led gathering of information about species in a certain area held over a certain length of time. These community science events have led to the documentation of rare or endangered species in many countries, including Canada. Our collective observations can grow our knowledge of native species’ distributions and help conservationists target areas to eradicate invasive species. These efforts may help conservation efforts to restore the balance and health of our local ecosystems. By documenting the natural world and sharing these observations to a global database, anyone can give back to nature."
NCC BioBlitz Call
As we learn more about who and what inhabits the land, we celebrate all that we encounter.
Pick your species be it flora, fauna or both and wander the 100 acre property noting what you see, take pictures to later upload for the Nature Conservancy using the iNaturalist app and enjoy the peace, quiet and beauty of all that’s around.
Bring friends looking for a fun and easy way to support nature this August long weekend.
The Shibagau Forest Farmstead is situated within the traditional territories of the Mississaugas, Anishinabewaki (ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ) and Wendake-Nionwentsïo peoples who are the original owners and custodians of these lands on which we are honoured to gather. As part of the Upper Canada Land Surrenders, under the Crawford Purchase of 1784, no treaty was ever signed.
August 23-25, 2024 Poetic Whispers: Installations in Nature $350. plus accommodation if required ($175)
The remote farm setting at Shibagau Creek Forest offers a unique backdrop for exploring nature through art and photography. The structure of this workshop will encourage participants to engage deeply with nature and their own artistic processes, reflecting on the transient beauty of natural art and how it can be captured and conveyed through photography.
Work with Walter Bergmoser and Peter Sramek, photographic artists and educators to expand your creative approaches and share insights together.
An introduction to the concept of art and interventions in nature will lead to discussion of how interventions can be made in nature responsibly and meaningfully, emphasizing the impermanence of some artists’ works and how to document these changes through photography.
Field Exploration around the farm will identify sites and gather natural materials that can be used in an art installation. Discussions will develop how these materials can be used to interact with the landscape, while simple experiments will be made with photographic materials utilizing alternative printing such as luminogram and cyanotype processes.
Participants will sketch their ideas and plan their installations, receiving feedback from peers and instructors. They will then select sites and construct their installations and/or natural art objects to then be documented in place with photography. Works made with natural materials will mostly be ephemeral and go back-to-nature, but then live on in the photographs which participants make.
Complex photographic experience, technique and equipment are not required for this workshop. Those interested in developing their relationship with the natural environment are invited to arrive with a cellphone (and appropriate outdoor wear).
Walter Bergmoser is an art photographer, designer and professor at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Berlin. As a partner in the International Art Collaborations Network, he has also been an exchange professor at OCAD University in Toronto. This will be his second year at SCFF collaborating in a photography workshop with Peter Sramek.
Peter Sramek is a photographic artist and professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto now living in South Frontenac. His recent exhbition at the Tett Centre in Kingston was titled The Abstraction is Not the Reality.
Participants will arrive on Friday afternoon or evening and may stay an extra night on Sunday to make a long weekend should they desire.
Cost: $525 includes tuition, accommodation and meals; $350 for those who do not require accommodation and breakfasts.
A deposit of $60 will hold your place with full payment due 2 weeks prior to the workshop. A non-refundable fee of $60 will apply if you cancel less than 2 weeks prior.
Ride sharing can be coordinated where possible. Pick-up and drop-off in Napanee is also possible should one wish to take the bus or the train.
Do you want to enhance your photography practice, reconnect with nature and enjoy a community of like-minded participants? This summer series is designed for you to feel in flow with your creativity, provide you with tools to develop your awareness and self-reflection, and offer collaborative image-making, discussion and learning, in an easy and collegial environment.
Tamworth Reflection, Jenny Zhang, workshop participant, June 2023.
Workshops are designed for 4-8 people per event, which will allow you to explore your creative vision, whatever your experience with the technology. Learning together will be about reflecting on your inner creative motivations while observing, feeling and experiencing within a natural environment. Exercises and discussions will be about personal creative directions, whatever yours might be. Technique may be discussed as desired. Bring your camera, questions and a collection of images to discuss in the company of like-minded photographers of all levels. Share a farmhouse dormitory arrangement or bring a tent. Spend one or two nights – or stay longer. If you live nearby, arrive for the days’ activities.
Night Interior, Gordon Kong, workshop participant, June 2023.
The barn studio space is available, and the entire farm property allows for forest walks, plant and wildlife observation and quiet contemplation. Nearby there are swimming options and the village with its excellent used bookstore and cafés.
(Farmhouse accommodation is limited, so book early (although tenting is also possible).
Shibagau Creek Forest Farmstead is a 100-acre retreat in a quiet valley with open meadows, forests and marshland. The property has been in the Sramek family for nearly 60 years and much of the land was replanted with trees at that time. The rustic 1900’s off-grid farmhouse overlooks the green valley and has an outdoor summer kitchen, firepit and dormitory loft, solar power, composting toilets and rain barrel shower. Open areas for tenting provide plenty of space for those who wish to camp. Trails lead through the forest down to the creek and to the upper fields with their viewpoints, perfect for silence & contemplation, walking and observing. The centre is actively in the process of development with new trees being planted this spring, the house and barn workshop space improved and forest trails expanded.
The Shibagau Forest Farmstead is situated within the traditional territories of the Mississaugas, Anishinabewaki (ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ) and Wendake-Nionwentsïo peoples who are the original owners and custodians of these lands on which we are honoured to gather. As part of the Upper Canada Land Surrenders, under the Crawford Purchase of 1784, no treaty was ever signed.
Getting Here: Outside Tamworth, Ontario, north of Napanee (Highway 41 exit on 401, or Camden East exit east of Kingston; from Highway 7, head south at Kaladar on Highway 41. Roughly 4 hours from Toronto or Montreal and 3 from Ottawa.
Weekend Schedule: Arrive Friday afternoon/evening or on Saturday morning. Finish on Sunday afternoon (an extra night stay can be arranged without extra cost).
Environment: This is a natural forested location, so bring bug spray and expect to spend time outdoors in various weather conditions.. The kitchen deck, firepit, BBQ and eating area are outdoors (there is a mosquito tent with tables for when bugs are bad). There is a swimming lake 20 minutes drive away, a rain barrel shower onsite and composting toilets.
Meals: Food & non-alcoholic beverages will be provided with shared preparation and clean-up. This is a ‘take your waste, leave no trace’ location.
Charging: Solar power system enables some charging of devices when required. At this point there is only spotty onsite cell service by the house and no WiFi (it is a great place to disconnect). Cell service is at the top of the hill at the entrance to the property, a five-ten minute walk from the house.
Dorm Sleeping: On the second floor, there is an open-concept loft with 6 comfortably spaced out beds. Currently there is one bedroom downstairs with queen bed – more to come as we renovate the extension.
Camping: There is plenty of room for tenting in the fields around the farmhouse and barn.
