Stinking Fish Studio Tour
The Stinking Fish Studio Tour features the best of fine art and fine craft on the southern island, surrounded by its natural beauty. All Stinking Fish artists are juried by peer professionals to assure the highest quality in fine art and fine craft.Twenty-two artists in Metchosin and East Sooke open their studios in the coastal area of Vancouver Island, just west of Victoria, BC and offer a rich artistic diversity featuring painting, fine porcelain, printmaking and mosaic; the sculptural beauty expressed in wood, metal and jewelery, as well as floral, textile and photographic works.
Come explore one of the richest “art trails” on the island – meet the artists, see their work and take some home with you! Admission is free. All are welcome. Artworks are for sale.
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No stink around Stinking Fish
Goldstream Gazette, November 23, 2007
Metchosin and East Sooke artist studios
Polishing an intricate box pieced from exotic woods, Don Knoles inspects the surface for flush sides and minute imperfections. If six years in the U.S. Marine Corps taught him anything, it is to be meticulous.
His art is a jigsaw puzzle of multicoloured, striped jewelery cases, trivets and cutting boards. Typically each item takes days and weeks to assemble into place, but each is a one of a kind.
“It’s a hobby, not a job. I probably couldn’t make a living at it,” Knoles says. “It takes too much time to finish the work. Some stuff can take months.”
For repeat visitors on the Stinking Fish Studio Tour, Knoles’ workshop in his Metchosin home (most of which he and his wife built) is familiar territory. He’s been part of the tour for five years, the only venue where he sells his work.
The 70-year-old former systems analyst for the Department of National Defence in Esquimalt says he’s been woodworking all his life. He grew up in Idaho, had a stint in the Marines and moved to Metchosin more than 35 years ago. But retiring 10 years ago gave him a chance to dive into his hobby full time.
He built a workshop and started making furniture pieces under contract, but retired life was suddenly replaced with deadline pressures. “I decided not to be under the gun. Now I do what I want, when I want,” he says.
Many of his woods are exotic timbers shipped in from overseas, but he prefers to recycle cedar leftovers from homebuilding, for instance.
“I like the grains, the various tones within the wood,” Knoles says. “Putting things together and building this and that appeals to me. If it has appeal to others, it will sell.”
The winter Stinking Fish tour has about 24 artists spread throughout Metchosin and East Sooke, with everything from abstract painting to pottery to metalwork from a blacksmith.
“There is so many different disciplines. There is definitely enough variety to make it interesting,” says Linda Peacock, a tour organizer and creator of floral art. “Metchosin is wealthy with artists.”
Peacock started the summer and winter Stinking Fish tours seven years ago, inheriting the legacy of the East Sooke-Metchosin Studio Tour that had been around for about a decade.
All the artists who join help organize the tour in some way by helping with publicity or designing brochures. The name itself derives from a First Nations word S-met-sho-sun, or “stinking fish,” after a rather confused conversation between local aboriginal people and James Douglas in the 1840s.
“We’ve been told numerous times it’s the best tour on the Island,” Peacock says. “It makes us feel good.”
The Stinking Fish Studio Tour is a self-guided tour of Metchosin and East Sooke artists, Nov. 23-25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
