I’ve been involved with various Meetup groups for a few years now.  Meetup.com is a social based online system to help people actually come together face to face through various interest groups.

There are different groups that focus on all sorts of topics and interests.  I’ve come across groups with interests in dogs, real estate investing, skiing and snowboarding, trying out different restaurants, outdoor hiking, business networking, attending festivals, dancing, pubs, pool halls, special topic speaker events and yes, even art related groups.

These groups organize various events which people are invited to attend.  Sometimes there are nominal costs to join certain Meetup groups and/or attend their events while much of the time, there are no costs at all.

You do have to do your research and check out different Meetup groups that might interest you in your area as not all are organized the same.  Some groups have been running for many years while some are not very active since in many cases, the organizers of each group must put in time as a volunteer to get their groups up and running and maintaining them.

There are probably lots of Meetup groups already in your local region if you are located in North America.  Just start at Meetup.com and enter your location plus a few interests and you will see several groups in your area.

Toronto Meetup Groups I Get Involved With The Most

So far, I’ve joined quite a few different Meetup groups in the Toronto area but I’m involved with three main ones.  Although none of these are focused primarily on art (since the art groups I saw are not that active), some do feature events involving visits to art galleries and expos.

GTA Free Spirits - a fun social group that I just formed and will have different events including outings to shows, restaurants, festivals, ski days and some travel.  I do plan to include art related outings during the summer.

Toronto Events Meetup - this is a group that is focused primarily on restaurant and cuisine outings although they are doing a few non-food events such as art gallery visits too.

Toronto Ski Meetup - this primarily winter season group is about getting people together (with carpools) to ski and snowboard in the southern Ontario area and I have met many of my ski students here.

So if you are in the GTA Toronto region, check out the Meetup groups above as well as others through Meetup.com as it’s a great way to ‘meet up’.

Canadian National Anthem O Canada

Here is just a bit of entertainment that we found here at Free Spirit Gallery.  Since the artwork we feature is Canadian native or Inuit, this music video sort of fits in with the Canadiana theme.

If you are not Canadian and have never heard O Canada, the Canadian national anthem, here is a version of it on guitar.  Of course if you are Canadian, this is a version of our beloved national anthem that you definitely have not heard before.

The guitarist previous featured a bit of his acoustic guitar playing in the Motivational WebTV episodes about New Habits For Personal Growth Success and Motivational Speaking Ties Skiing And Music Together.  But for this new video, it’s both acoustic and electric guitars.

If you like this video clip, please share it with others, especially your Canadian friends.  Heck, even if you think it’s on the borderline of bizzare, share it.  Where else are you going to see an Asian Chinese guitarist play the Canadian national anthem?

The latest word is that Clint Cora, the guitarist on this video, will tackle the US national anthem next for his American friends!

African Art

Another partner of our’s which we’ve been quite happy with is Strictly Africa, who deals with not only African art, but all sorts of nice items made in Africa.  They have African textiles, dolls and even musical drums from the dark continent.

For a unique gift this upcoming holiday season, you might want to spend some time at Strictly Africa to browse through what they have in stock.

By the way, their African masks are great!

White Inuit Art Sculptures

Our partner Gallery Canada deals in white Inuit art sculptures since they source carvings from a specific area of Nunavut where the local carvers have access to white stone.  I really like these artwork since the white colour gives the carvings a very pristine look.

Take a look at their website Gallery Canada to see what they have to offer for this coming holiday season and keep in mind that they are based in Ontario, Canada.  So if you are shopping for a special gift, do so with shipping time factored in — so shop early!

Gallery Canada has been one of our partners for several years so they are completely legit and worth a look.

Holiday Season Native Art Shopping

Once again, Free Spirit Gallery is reminding everyone to please keep shipping times in mind if considering Native art for the upcoming holiday season.  Depending on where you are located, it can take two to three weeks to have Native art shipped to your location.

We always have a few customers each year who want that special Native art piece to give to somebody for the holidays but they always order quite late.  There’s often no way we could get that artwork out to them in time unless they are willing to pay a huge premium for quick courier service.

So plan well ahead of time for the holiday season and shop not only at Free Spirit Gallery, but any online retailer, early rather than late. You don’t want to be disappointed because of late arrivals of Native art just because you ordered so late in the season.

This is especially the case for Northwest Indian art prints.  We can run out of stock of certain limited edition prints and must get more from the artist which can add another 1-2 weeks to the overall shipping time.

So once again, do holiday season shopping early at Free Spirit Gallery whether for Northwest Indian art or Inuit art.

Polar Bears Calendars

Who doesn’t like polar bears?  Probably nobody!

So once again, Free Spirit Gallery is proud to announce the new 2013 calendars featuring polar bears from the Arctic.

Polar bears are probably the most popular subject from Inuit art carvings.  Polar bear carvings come in both walking positions as well as dancing positions.

Many folks can’t get enough of the polar bears so that’s where the 2013 calendars come in.  We have selected a nice variety of calendars from our partner Calendars.com and to see what they have released, go to;

2013 Polar Bears Calendars

Northwest Indian Art Carvings

Northwest Indian art carver Alfie Fishgap has approved some discounted pricing for many of his artwork to help out customers with their upcoming holiday shopping.  As a result, we have pretty well all of his Northwest Indian art carvings on special.

If you browse through out Northwest Indian art carvings sections, you will see the original as well as discounted prices for his pieces we have at our Free Spirit Gallery website.

These prices also include free shipping within Canada and the USA.  Since these are original, one of a kind artwork from a master artist, we do NOT expect prices to go any lower than these.

We hope that these special prices will help get more of Alfie’s artwork into the hands of appreciative art collectors out there.

Northwest Native Art Paddles

Northwest Native art carver Alfie Fishgap makes some great canoe paddles and Free Spirit Gallery has a direct line to some of them for our customers.  They are relatively high end items though but since holiday shopping season is coming and Alfie would like to have a few of his paddles serve as very special gifts this holiday season, we’ve decided to offer some special pricing on them.

We have decided to discount all canoe paddles by Alfie Fishgap by $50 to $120 and these paddles still include free shipping within Canada and the USA. This is a big savings from our already discounted online prices.

So check out these Northwest Native art paddles at our website and make one of these a very special holiday gift for someone (or yourself).

Inuit Art Calendars

We know that many of our Free Spirit Gallery visitors are also fans of Inuit art so once again, we have located new 2013 calendars featuring Inuit art.  We also found some calendars with Arctic themes like Alaska and Aurora Borealis.

To see what is available from our partner Calendars.com, see

Inuit Art Arctic Calendars

If you missed our announcement about the new 2013 calendars featuring Native art and culture themes, see

Native American Calendars

Native American Culture 2013 Calendars

Once again this year, we’ve selected a great collection of 2013 calendars featuring Native art and Native American plus Canadian First Nations cultures.  We don’t carry them here at Free Spirit Gallery but one of our partners Calendars.com does and we highly recommend them.

In fact, we’ve been recommending them for a few years now and many of our customers have been very pleased with the calendars from them.

To start browsing the various new 2013 calendars, see

Native Art Culture Calendars.

Have fun browsing!