Living is Easy members' projects 2025

Struts is happy to announce this year's Living is Easy Members' projects by Kris Gunn, Saarah Ali, Dee Olinglass, Ranz Bontogon, Jess Paget and Susie Vokey. From ceramics workshops, to exhibitions, to community inquiries about nature, to animatronic revivals, our members' interests span a wide and eclectic range. Learn more about each artist's project below.

All projects are open to the public during Struts Gallery hours, unless specific times are indicated!

Kris Gunn | Critter Call | May 6 - 20

Open Studio Drop-in

Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between May 6 –20

1-5pm

Calling all citizen scientists! Do you have a favourite bug? What’s the strangest mushroom you’ve ever seen? Is there a flower that you wait all season to watch bloom? I want to know what in nature catches your eye, keeps you guessing or makes your skin crawl. Come share some stories, pictures or respectfully gathered specimens and a cup of tea as I explore the colours, shapes and textures of our local environment that inspire my ceramic work.

Kris Gunn (she/they) working as Cricket Sound Studios is an independent ceramic art studio creating handcrafted objects for the home and altar. Drawing inspiration from the local environment, the pieces channel the calm of the lapping tides and the whispering forests.

Saarah Ali | May 6 – 20

During my time in the Struts studio space, I will be exploring how embroidery can be used as a drawing and sculptural tool. I will be doing so with an illustration of Grand Manan Island and Trinidad connected by the sea on a soft cotton canvas. I want to emphasize their similarities as they both have beautiful island features, but naturally differ to match their respective climates (continental and tropical). Using coloured embroidery floss to draw the base of this design, I envision most of the tapestry to be sewn in simple stitches such as running and back stitch to form the image. By experimenting with embroidery techniques, crocheting, knitting, weaving etc, I will fill in the design to find a playful colouring book kind of quality while adding wonderful intricate details.

Saarah Ali is an artist based in Sackville, NB that creates large-scale soft sculptures and drawings. She tells fantastical stories and explores the beauty of nature using embroidery and sewing techniques. Her work is known for its attention to very fine details and immersive illustrations. As the works are built up with thread and soft material, they create a cozy feeling which the artist deems essential to an immersive story. Saarah is a graduate of Mount Allison University and is now exhibiting works in local galleries around New Brunswick and through her website and social media.

Dee Olinglass | All the small things | May 27 – June 10

Ceramic Workshop with Dee Olinglass

Saturday May 31, 1pm

Saturday June 7, 1pm

Community members are invited to join ceramic artist Dee Olinglass in creating small clay objects, based on their own personal mythology, to later be incorporated into daily rituals. Dee will host two workshops demonstrating some of the hand-building techniques she uses to make small clay pieces, including incense burners, shallow bowls, sculptures, shrines, and wild-flower vases. Participants will make their own pieces, which will be displayed in the Struts gallery space while drying. Community members are also encouraged to independently work on a piece alongside the artist throughout the work week.

Dee Olinglass (née Danielle Douglas) is newly-professional potter, recovering academic, and psychonaut residing in Mi'kma'ki (Sackville, NB). She makes and sells functional ceramic wares through her new business, Day Moon Ceramics. Her work explores the relationship between nature, inner myth, and household objects–illuminating the sacred in the everyday. While on the wheel, she is thinking about ancient myth, neuroscience, music, motherhood, psychedelia, flowers, friendship, and the nature of consciousness.

Ranz Bontogon | Something We Hold Onto | June 24 – July 8

Something We Hold Onto is a body of work that consists of cyanotype prints created by newcomers in New Brunswick. With each piece tied to a small personal object that carries a memory that reminds them of home. Printed through a cameraless photo process called cyanotype, participants created shadow-like images, a photogram of the objects. This exhibition is a way to show the things we’ve kept, the distances we’ve moved through, and what it means to hold onto something while living in a new place.

Ranz Bontogon is a photographer, artist, and cultural worker based in Moncton, New Brunswick. Originally from Taguig City, Philippines, he immigrated to Canada in 2013 and has been living in New Brunswick for over a decade. His work explores Filipino identity, migration, and his culture through traditional darkroom processes, including silver gelatin and platinum-palladium printing.

Jess Paget | July 16 – 27

This project is a deep dive into the world of forgotten animatronics. Front and center is a focus on Daisy - a retired life size animatronic cow, fully analog, made in the 1980s who worked many decades at an amusement park in Nova Scotia. Jess will be working at Struts with a passionate goal to get her fixed up and moving just like she used to. Jess will also also be working on a continuous collection of stipple drawings of the many once loved animatronic characters of the last 40 years.

Jess Paget is a multidisciplinary artist with a love for bleach dying, marsh nature, and all things analog, but mainly focused on stipple illustrations and film photograph. She has shown some of my work at Thunder and Lightning, Hounds of Vintage, and tabled at various craft fairs in town over the years.