I live in Toronto.

My name is Brenda. I am an artist (drawing and painting) and a potter (miniature teapots), a writer (poetry and short stories) and a gardener (mostly vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers). I recently discovered metalsmithing and am making jewelry (so very excited as I am about to set up a shop)!

I was a foundation art professor for 25+ years at Sheridan College. It was a job I loved. I retired in June 2017 and I’m sharing what life has been like after a career in teaching.

I am looking forward to having time to discover who I am without ‘the’ job to prop me up and will be continuing my art and writing practices. I have a novel in a suitcase somewhere (I think I know where it is). I studied creative writing at Ottawa University with Seymour Mayne, OCA (now OCADU) with George Miller and Humber College with Graeme Gibson and Margaret Atwood in a Summer Workshop (talk about a rare stereo experience with the two of them in our tiny class of seven students). I’m now doing Margaret’s Masterclass online and I recently took a writing course called Book on Fire with Donna Barker at the end of 2017. I am currently working on a collection of short stories … and, there are some illustrations I did for Sandra Dedrick of The Free Design for the song, Love You.

Friends nicknamed me Bre.

I planted some seeds once and blogged a bit about my garden for a decade thereon afterward using the avatar, gardenbre, and am on twitter as such. The name has grown on me to the point sometimes I have to remind myself I am notgardenbre.

 in Paris pretending to drink from a fountain spitting water from statue’s orifice

I garden in the High Park Allotment and in containers on a South-facing roof deck in downtown Toronto … so there will be seedlings and garden notes and recipes … some botanical drawings … a little calligraphy … some DIY reno HOMEwork projects because my home’s screaming for some love …

here are some old garden posts …

I’ll be using a new twitter, setting up shop on etsy and using this Facebook business page and here’s my instagram …

I wanted to be a professional blogger when I was older. That time is nigh.

The plan is was to do 100 things in 1000 days and talk about it like there’s no tomorrow.

UPDATE – SO MUCH OF THE AFOREMENTIONED WENT BY THE WAYSIDE  …

Life took some quick turns left and then right

and

then

I took my first jewelry course

and then another and another and another and …

and soOoo

thesterlingyears.com -ing soon!

see some of what I’ve been up to in jewelry-making!

I’m setting up the blog on thesterlingyears.com and the shop will be at oneseedwonders.com … with luck things will be seamlessly connected and launching before the New Year.