What’s on — from free yoga to tabletop gaming

You’re reading the October 11, 2024 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

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Good morning and welcome to the arts and community edition of the Peterborough Currents newsletter. My name is Alex, and I send this email every Friday to catch you up on what’s happening in the community.

This week:

• Local creatives find kinship with bugs and grubs  
• Free family fun at Springville Fall Festival 
• Inclusive yoga at Sadleir House
• Melissa Payne in concert at The Theatre on King
• And more!

Before we get to that, I want to correct something from our Tuesday newsletter. We got the address of PATH wrong. The correct address is 385 Lansdowne Street East. That’s where you can donate to their winter clothing drive.

Okay, let’s get started!

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Bugging out with local artists

Ravon Yates has always loved bugs, worms, and other creepy critters.

The Peterborough-based sculptor and visual artist spent their childhood exploring the forests near Bancroft and north of Peterborough, where they discovered a lot about the area’s flora and fauna. But they were always drawn back to worms and insects. 

Now, they run a thriving artisan shop, Compost Craft, which offers paintings, drawings, sculptures, and jewelry pieces featuring worms, grubs, and other critters. They describe their art as “shining a light on the small and misunderstood and overstepped.”

Yates said they feel a “kinship” with the “gross guys” — something they connect with their experience of queer identity.

“They’re super freaky and they’re super queer,” Yates said of the grubs they depict. “There is that parallel of stigma and all of the misconceptions … People think they know what it means to be queer and trans, and they don’t.”

Local artist Sheldon Storey shares a similar fascination with bugs. When I visited his studio during the Kawartha Autumn Studio Tour last month, I found it brimming with taxidermy pieces pinned with butterfly wings, glittering beetles under glass, and swarms of preserved insects seemingly congregating on rocks or driftwood.

Just like Ravon Yates, Storey uses bugs as a metaphor for his own queer identity and the queer community at large. “They’re seen as scary, yet they’re quite frankly harmless, just as queer folk,” he said. 

I spoke with Storey and Yates about their art and how they use insects to represent the queer experience. Read the full story at the Peterborough Currents website.  

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Fall Festival this Saturday will bring Springville Market’s season to a close 

This Saturday, October 12, Artistic Pathways will host their final outdoor Springville Market of the season from 12 to 6 p.m. at Springville Tap N’ Grill (2714 Brown Line). To celebrate the end of their first market season, they have put together a fall festival with crafts, face painting, pumpkin decorating, trick-or-treating, live music, and more.

Sherri Soucie established Artistic Pathways as a way to help her son, Elias Hinn, gain confidence and build employment skills. Soucie explained that Hinn was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and anxiety disorder at six years of age, and she was concerned about his ability to find and keep a paying job.

“This market has pushed him to his maximum, especially when I was sick and he had to set everything up on his own,” she said. “My goal was really to help Elias and other individuals with struggles and barriers to gain skills and give them a place to sell their creations.”

Since gaining experience from working at the market, Hinn has landed his first job at Montana’s. He plans to start a mentorship program through Artistic Pathways to help others facing employment barriers when the market starts up again next summer.

Learn more about Artistic Pathways and the Springville Market on their Facebook page.

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Gentle yoga at Sadleir House is free for everyone

Des Mathews and Sneha Wadhwani lead yoga classes at Sadleir House on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 7 p.m. The sessions are free for everyone in the community to attend, with funding from the CUPE 3908 chapter. No prior registration is required.

“Both of us have very gentle guidance,” said Mathews. “I try to make the practices very slow and accessible and offer lots of options. I really feel like we’ve facilitated a safe and brave space for people to show up as they are, without any expectations.”

Wadhwani emphasized that there is no requirement for prior experience. “I think a lot of times people come into yoga thinking they need to be flexible, or thinking it’s a very body-focused practice,” she said. “So I always say at the start of every class that everything I say is a suggestion. Giving people the agency of knowing this is your body and your time to do what you want is so important.”

Both facilitators have a focus on inclusive, accessible practice that decolonizes the tradition of yoga. They said that Sadleir House provides a space for people not only to move their bodies, but to form friendships and connect with their community.

“We’re constantly being blessed by the music and the events that are happening in this space, and everyone is just putting in their good energy. So the vibes are immaculate,” Mathews said.

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Melissa Payne at The Theatre on King 

Peterborough Walk of Fame inductee Melissa Payne is back in town to perform her latest music next week. The Theatre on King will host Payne at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15, as part of their LiSTEN MuCH series curated by Charlie Glasspool.

“I was doing an interview with Charlie and he asked me kind of on the spot if I would do it,” Payne remembered with a laugh. “And I love that room,” she said of The Theatre on King. “It’s such a beautiful, unique sounding space.”

Payne has three full-length traditional fiddle and folk rock albums to draw from for her performance next week, but she will also feature her new single, “So Real,” and a couple of new original songs that haven’t been recorded yet. 

In addition to playing her own songs, she plans to do a “collective showcase” of local music. “I really want to promote the music scene in Peterborough, because it’s booming right now,” Payne said. “I hope it will inspire people to go out and buy tickets to a show and just keep the art in the music scene thriving.”

Tickets to Melissa Payne’s LiSTEN MUCH show cost $25 and are available for purchase both online and at the door on Tuesday night.

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Photo: Sheila Stewart at Take Cover Books

Looking for more to do?

• Dance in the Boro is back at Quaker Foods City Square, with free outdoor dance classes for all ages. Folks can learn a Zumba routine tonight (Friday, October 11) from 5 to 6 p.m., and a Bollywood style dance on Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m. 
• The 22nd annual Kawartha Farmfest is this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A self-guided driving tour of area farms, with farm-fresh food, family-friendly activities, Kawartha Farmfest offers an opportunity to learn about the local agriculture community. Free printable maps are available on the Kawartha Lakes website.
• Duelling Grounds Peterborough is hosting Dungeons and Dragons games on Sunday starting at 11:30 a.m. Players can join a table, create a character, and go adventuring. No prior experience is required. It costs $5 plus tax to play, and two tables with two separate adventures will run throughout the event.
• Friendly Rich & the Jane Does will perform their new EP release, “A Modest Proposal”, at The Pig’s Ear Tavern Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $5 at the door. 

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