Thursday, August 21 | 4:00–8:00+ PM
Georgian Trail, Meaford (Bridge + Denmark St)
One night only!
The Georgian Trail was transformed into an open-air gallery.
30+ local artists, sculptors, photographers, and musicians!
Art popped up in trees, bushes, along fences. Playful, unexpected, and WILD.
Visitors enjoyed mocktails as they strolled, chatted, sipped, and soaked up the creative energy!
Thank you to the Meaford Culture Foundation for their generous support!
There were 30 artists and 2 musicians! See map below:
Read about the show in the Meaford Independent!
Viz Saraby
As an interior designer, educator, photographer, and artist, I am on a quest to examine evolving definitions of safety, which were once purely physical but are now increasingly psychological. I question how much accommodation is too much. Through the character of a Safety Cone, I invite viewers to reflect on how we can honour the need for protection without overreaching into a maze of rules and well-intentioned absurdities.
Nisa Cornforth
I work with driftwood, linen, and crystal to explore the tension between protection and confinement, creating spaces that feel both sacred and fragile. My work speaks to the quiet ache of being seen beneath the subtle damage of self-preservation.
Mikael Sandblom
I see my body of work as a series of experiments, exploring the expressive potential of various materials and techniques. Clouds, waves, and cityscapes are often the subject matter. By presenting ordinary things in new ways, I try to see them with fresh eyes; to see the beauty and complexity that we have often stopped noticing.
Anne de Haas
I’ve been a professional photographer for over 30 years, spending my time, both in studio and on location, but I have worked in all kinds of visual arts. Since moving to Grey County I’ve developed a kinship with a local murder of crows and an art project to honour them is emerging, organically, piece by piece.
Brian Fray
After years of focusing on commercial illustration and cartoon commissions, I’ve returned to painting and sketching for myself. My abstract landscapes and pen drawings reflect my deep love for this beautiful area.
Caleb Sandblom
My work explores how people, technologies, and societies co-construct one another, grounded in the idea that we are cyborgs, shaped by the tools and mediums through which we perceive and engage the world. Rooted in drawing and painting but expanded through digital practices, I treat materials as active agents in thought, using a critical, luddite lens to examine how tools reshape the self.
Caryn Joy Colman
While most of my work is rooted in drawing and painting, I’ve recently begun creating garden sculptures. I love how outdoor spaces let ideas stretch beyond the limits of a room. I’m passionate about our environment, so transforming discarded materials into something beautiful feels like a natural extension of my practice.
Charlene Lapensee
I’ve been drawing and painting since I was five, and I spend every spare moment creating. As a detail-oriented artist, I appreciate precision. I also work with live edge wood to craft unique artworks, games, and one-of-a-kind charcuterie boards.
Chris Fray
After years as an industrial artist, I have found my true medium: glass and copper foil. Now, I capture the beauty of nature in vibrant, light-filled works that reflect both strength and delicacy.
Daciana Dao Desi Seulean
Painting is how I make sense of the world. My work expresses what words cannot, using symbols like stones, spirals, tears, and waves to explore emotion and meaning. Organized through the language of visual art, each piece invites the viewer on a personal journey.
Dorothy Embacher
I use reflective surfaces placed purposefully in nature to create visual depth, mystery, and a deeper connection to the landscape. Working from my home studio in Meaford, I aim to inspire awareness of nature’s beauty and oddity while encouraging sustainable living through my evolving art practice.
Eva Witkowska
On display today is a reimagined traditional European crochet doily, stretched over a willow ring. Once a symbol of domestic comfort, it now exists in the wild, liberated from the confines of small, stuffy spaces. Open to the air and wind, it reveals the sky through its stitches. This piece is a response to the need for the feminine to emerge and help soften the world we inhabit.
Fran Bouwman
This series celebrates reclamation. Through sculpture, I explore visibility, embodiment, and empowerment, drawing inspiration from three iconic women artists: Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual forms, Bridget Riley’s optical patterns, and Yayoi Kusama’s obsessive repetition and infinite space. These influences gave rise to the Flying Vulvas: soaring, unapologetic, and alive.
Jessica Kenyon
‘Unnatural’ invites viewers to confront the tension between our expectations of nature and the artificial elements we impose on it. Though synthetic and seemingly out of place, it mirrors what it disrupts—creating a paradox: it shouldn’t work, yet somehow it does.
Laurie Coish
My art is a reflection of who I am—passionate, vibrant, and drawn to beauty. As an abstract artist, I’m inspired by the natural textures and energy of the Grey Bruce region. Colour and texture are at the core of my work, whether I’m creating expressive abstracts or moody seascapes. Each piece captures emotion, place, and movement through layered brushwork.
Penny Jamieson
My work is created using 35mm film photography. All of my images are silver gelatin prints, developed and printed in the darkroom with Ilford chemicals on archival paper. Once the prints are dry, some are hand-toned in sepia, and select areas are hand-painted with oils. Others are left in black and white to preserve the integrity and original impact of the image.
Sheila Greenland
Standing on the Georgian Trail, I will compose an image of nature as seen from my viewpoint using gouache, a water-based medium with a rich history spanning centuries. Gouache demands swift execution and careful control, as it is best applied without layering.
Heather McIlwee
My installation, “34”, reflects the 34-kilometre length of the Georgian Trail, using vintage Tupperware cups as visual markers to represent both time and distance. By encountering these objects along the beginning of the trail, viewers engage in a quiet vignette that invites them to consider the trail as a whole and their own movement through it.
Laura Steels Hitchcock
Mother and Daughter, Two Generations of Art: Laura grew up watching her mother work in acrylics, absorbing lessons in form, texture, and colour. She later found her own voice through the medium of pencil drawing.
Sue Johnston
I’m looking for
the starters,
the nurturers,
the protectors,
and I’m revelling in the blooms.
Marie Burnett
This piece uses humour to bring attention to the environmental problem of waste; it depicts the human and canine impact on our natural environment. It was inspired by walking along the Georgian trail only to see absurd quantities of poopy sacs tied to tree branches or bags flung into the woods.
As a visual arts educator who works primarily in the medium of photography and non-traditional, mixed media installation, my work typically explores observed juxtapositions and contradictions in nature and in gender politics.
Dale Marsh
I paint what grabs me – those “stop the car” moments that demand attention, whether it’s a weathered barn, a stray animal, or a crumbling house. Recent travels to Newfoundland and Tuscany have added fresh inspiration to my collection.
Helen Solmes
Helen Solmes’ photography is an integral part of her life journey. For decades it was both a hobby and a work-related tool. Since retiring to Meaford 10 years ago, she has been freer to play, experiment, and push the creative process further than ever
Richard Ebbs
I like to create ephemeral art pieces from objects found in the landscape. I’m also a musician.
Bryan James
I work mostly with found objects, exploring a range of subjects. My current focus is on making marks and building layers to create meaning through texture and form.
Craig Gallery
Craig Gallery is a family‑run contemporary art space in downtown Meaford, Ontario, featuring work in painting, sculpture, photography, pottery, and jewelry by over 40 established and local Ontario artists. Established in August 2019 by Bridget Light Craig and Jonathan Craig, the gallery hosts regular exhibitions, to serve both the local community and a broader audience.
Eric Busch
I’m a full‑time web developer and fine art photographer based in Owen Sound, Ontario, whose practice is deeply meditative and rooted in responding to the subtle shifts of nature through minimal compositions. Inspired by classical Chinese poetry and the philosophy of emptiness and absence, my work seeks to capture a quiet energy from the landscape.
Katherine Carson
My paintings come from my feelings which could be …. frustration re world events or joyful moments I express on canvas. My art education includes studies at OCA, the New School of Art, Haliburton School of Art and Design, and Marea Studio in Puerto Vallarta.
Paula Rubin
I create visceral images that evoke compassion, often inventing faces that are not portraits but range from the deformed to the outlandish. Influenced by outsider art and naïve primitivism, I use paper cutouts, encaustic, collage, oil, ink, watercolor, and acrylic to strip away and create the masked faces.
Sue Adaskin
I fell in love with glass as a creative medium in high school and have been working with stained glass and fused glass ever since, developing my craft over decades of experimentation and collaboration. Surrounded by art and music from an early age, I now live in Owen Sound, where I continue to explore the expressive possibilities of glass.
From the Meaford Independent newspaper:
Art in the Wild: A Trail-Side Celebration of Creativity and Community
Posted: July 31, 2025
This summer, the Georgian Trail is getting a wild makeover. Art in the Wild, a pop-up art experience in Meaford, will be on for one night only on Thursday, August 21, from 4 – 8 p.m. Stretching between Bridge Street and Denmark Street, the trail will be transformed into an open-air art gallery, featuring 30+ local artists and two musicians, with installations and performances tucked into trees, along fences, and scattered across the landscape. Expect the unexpected: art that surprises, delights, and invites you to look twice.
“It’s part walk, part art show, part treasure hunt,” said organizers Viz Saraby and Nisa Cornforth. “You never know what you’ll find around the next bend.”
Visitors will receive an Art in the Wild ‘passport’ at the Gazebo (Kilometre Zero), the event’s starting point. The passport encourages guests to engage with artists along the trail: after chatting about their work, the artist will mark your passport. Visitors who collect the most signatures will be eligible for creative prizes donated by the artists themselves. It will be a playful way to spark conversation and connection, and a chance to walk away with a small piece of local art.
At the Gazebo, you’ll also find artist info pages, with short descriptions that explain what each artist creates. To learn more? You’ll have to go find them on the trail.
And while you wander, enjoy a refreshing mocktail, meet neighbours, and soak up the incredible talent Meaford has to offer.
- Free admission
- Start at the Gazebo (Kilometre Zero)
- Thursday, August 21
- Rain date: August 28
Don’t miss this unforgettable fusion of art, nature, and community spirit. Whether you’re a seasoned art lover or a curious explorer, Art in the Wild promises to be a magical evening off the beaten path.
Thank you to the Meaford Culture Foundation for their generous support!
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