Kate Church Joins Aura Collective

The circus is in town here in Toronto. Specifically, Cirque du Soleil is presenting a new show which features an other-worldly cast of fantasy characters that inspires the soul and fascinates the mind.

So too does the work of ceramic artist and puppet maker Kate Church from Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. We are overjoyed to present a sampling of Kate's magnificent one-of-a-kind work at Aura Collective starting today.

Kate's characters have come to the attention of the Cirque's artistic mindset, and the fit was so good that the company has licensed some of Kate's characters.

Kate's new pieces presented at Aura are classed as "Executive Toys" and feature a new cast of wonderful character puppets - from Birdee the groupie to Mad Harey (shown above) from her SHRINKS Series of characters. These are sensational puppets that delight the child within and challenge the creative spirit.

Sculptural puppetry as Kate calls it. With Christmas coming up, these puppets are a great gift for the bored executive or carefree person in your life.

Welcome to the family, Kate.

Awesome New "Artists" Section

Wow, how time flies.

It seems like a lifetime ago when we launched the Aura Collective website in beta form way, way back in April 2009. At the time, we were pretty pleased with the result - and especially with the charity selection tool in the checkout section (which was developed from scratch).

As far as we know, Aura Collective is the first and only company anywhere to allow customers to direct a portion of the retail price (a 15% portion!) to their preferred charity. And the customer can choose from any of the 85,000+ registered charities in Canada. Pretty awesome, we think.

At the time, we moved heaven and earth to get the website up and running within 8 weeks of conception.

Since then, we've been pretty busy making small modifications to improve the look and feel of the website - from improved navigation and "view all" product functionality to cool product zooming technology.

Today, we launched our latest improvement - this time to the benefit of Aura artists. We have added all artist products to the artist's profile in the Artists section. Now, if you wish to see all of Lisa Ridout's jewellery, you can simply go to Lisa's artist profile where you will find every one of Lisa's pieces in one handy location spanning all product categories. It's like the addition of an "artist store" within the Aura mall.

Want to see all of Sharon McNamara's wonderful glass tableware? Go to Sharon's profile.

Want to see all of Virginia Wilson Toccalino's glass objects? Go to Virginia's profile.

You get the picture. And so it is with all Aura artists.

Enjoy!

Aura Donations To Charity

Every purchase at Aura Collective results in a donation to charity.

While we are not unique in our philanthropy, we are unique in our approach to charity donation. Why? Because when a customer purchases a piece of original art or fine craft from Aura, the customer directs the donation to charity (not Aura).

And the customer can choose from any of the 85,000 registered charities in Canada! Not from some select list of Aura-nominated charities. Any registered charity in Canada!

This form of donation democratization is unique in our experience. Not only do a customers define themselves by what they buy, they also define themselves by which charities they support.

Cool, eh?

Here is a small sampling of the charities supported by Aura customers:

Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation
Canadian Diabetes Association
Pictou County Children's Aid Society
Habitat For Humanity
Field Hockey Canada
Tim Horton's Children Foundation
Sanctuary Ministries of Toronto
Canadian Tire Foundation For Families
Beginnings Counselling and Adoption Services of Ontario
Canadian Thyroid Cancer Support Group
Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

So which charity would you support if given the opportunity? Food for thought...

Sylvain Tremblay Grinds Out Great Pepper Mills

Sylvain Tremblay is one of those exceptional Canadian artists that works day and night pursuing his passion. In fact, most artists are the same. In Sylvain's case, his passion is spice mills.

Shown at left is a classic example of a mill designed and handmade by Sylvain in his workshop north of Montreal. It challenges the owner with the age old question "which came first - the chicken or the egg"? Let your guests have some fun trying to figure it out. The Black-Black pepper mill shown is available at Aura Collective.

Each of Sylvain's mills is a piece of beauty and they delight, challenge and amuse me. I love them and they look awesome in the kitchen or on the dining table.

By the way people, by purchasing the mill shown (as an example) you support a wonderful Canadian artist plus Aura Collective will donate $12.00 to any registered charity of your choice! You choose during the checkout process. We do this with every piece we sell online.

It's all part of the "Beauty of Giving". Win-win-win.

Judi Patson Joins Aura Collective

We are very excited to welcome jewellery designer and artist Judi Patson to the Aura family this week.

Judi produces some very cool jewellery - from necklaces and bracelets for women to cufflinks for men.

You can check it out here - just sort by artist and you can't miss the blue background product shots.

Judi joins a growing family of exceptional Canadian jewellery artists at Aura Collective including Lisa Ridout, Kimberley Price, Mandy Deskur, and Laurie Boisvert.

Welcome Judi! And keep an eye out for more artists joining the Aura family in the days to come.