Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Stylish After-Dive Soft Landing By Stephen Weir, March issue of Diver Magazine Kate, Conch and Cayman Pillow - photo by Weir For Toronto-based London-trained Interior Designer, Kate Thornly-Hall, Grand Cayman Island evokes a certain Seven Mile Beach chic.   Her new line of pillows, towels, hand-woven carpets, and wallpaper are inspired by Cayman life, below and above the water. Diver Magazine doesn’t want to typecast her as the Cayman Pillow Lady, but, just saying, that, when viewing her collection your eyes are drawn to her green and white trellis design throw pillows, her indoor outdoor pillows covered in 19 th century four-masted Cayman schooners and Royal Palm fronds.     Late last year, in a private downtown Toronto club she unveiled her Cayman Island Collection to Diver Magazine.   “ The Cayman Islands Tourism Office in Toronto called and ask if I had ever been to the Caymans. I had not.” Said Kate Thornly-Hall, in explaining how her n...

ANCIENT SHIPBUILDING DESIGN - THE WRECK OF THE LAST DHOW EXHIBITION - AGA KHAN MUSEUM - TORONTO Model of Dhow  - Aga Khan Museum - photo by George Socka The Dhow is a traditional one or two masted sailing vessel usually with lateen rigging (slanting, triangular sails) that has been used for two millennia in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It was constructed of wood.   Boat builders steam-shaped wooden hull planks, roughly 2.5 centimeters thick and between 20 and 50 centimeters wide.   These planks were stitched edge to edge with rope. According to the Aga Khan Museum “wadding was placed under the stitching both inside and outside the hull. A lime-like sealing compound applied to the exterior waterproofed the hull.”

DR ALAN CHONG TALKS ABOUT THE LAST DHOW RECOVERY - THE VIDEO Video talks to Dr Chong about the shipwreck of the 1,200-year-old dhow by Stephen Weir and George Socka for Diver Magazine DIVER MAGAZINE talked to Dr Alan Chong, the head of the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore about underwater archaeology and shipwrecks in the Java Sea.   Alan Chong is a former Toronto Art Gallery curator.   That interview can be seen in a short YouTube video at : http://youtu.be/jfI5pnTn-1U

The Lost Dhow Only showing in North America.  Dhow’d that happen? By Stephen Weir - article in March issue of Diver Magazine Canada’s newest gallery, the Aga Khan Museum , has just opened a major exhibition about one of the world’s oldest and most controversial underwater archaeological finds   – the 1,200 year-old Belitung Shipwreck.   The exhibition about the ship, The Lost Dhow; A discovery from the Maritime Silk Route , had its North American launch in Toronto in early December instead of a planned debut at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Pottery lie on the deck of the wreck of the Dhow. photo - Tilman W alterfang In 1998, the shallow waters off Belitung Island in the western Java Seas yielded what has proven to be the earliest marine archaeological discovery of the century – a wooden ship filled with gold, silver and bronze objects and a staggering 57,500 Chinese ceramic artifacts. The 15-metre long wooden trading vessel has...

. Handcuffs led to marriage and a strange encounter with Canada's grand master of photography: Thaddeus Holownia. Why it is worth checking out the Jane Corkin Gallery's launch of a new Thaddeus show this  Saturday in Toronto.  . Huffington Post Blog  by Stephen Weir  Hollownia Flickr photo by Christopher Mackay Back story: It was the fall of 1969. Somehow at the age of 16 I got accepted at the new Windsor University and I left my Renfrew home, pretty well for good.  It was me and a huge number of Americans  avoiding the draft and Vietnam who enrolled in an advanced style of Grade 13 - Windsor's Q-Year. IT was mandatory to live in residence if you made it into Q-year.  Most days were spent in the residence lounge since it was the one room on campus with a working stereo record player. I was listening to Jimi Hendrix for the very first time when a beautiful girl I'd never seen  on campus sat next to me waiting her turn to put on an LP....

From Handcuffs to the Group of Seven  It was the fall of 1969. Somehow I got out of Renfrew alive! University of Windsor. Q-Year with a class full of American draft dodgers. I was in the residence lounge, the one room on campus with a working stereo record player.  I was listening to Led Zep for the very first time.  Beautiful girl who I'd never seen on campus  before was sitting next to me listening to her new LP. Thaddeus Holownia floated in, dressed like Sgt Pepper with the addition of  a turkey feather stock in his hat. He drifted over to us, snapped handcuffs on our wrists and slouched out of the building in his own purple haze! Thaddeus used to do that a lot - walk around in a bit of a haze -- but, this time he did remember to come back and unlock us. We have been together ever since. My wife and I, not Thaddeus. In fact I haven't seen Thaddeus much since then. He moved from Windsor, to Toronto and settled eventually teaching art at Mount Allison Un...

  Toronto Museum Has A Small (but important) Wreck Exhibition 3-D printer was used to make this replica bell.  On display in Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum In 1845 the British Franklin Expedition sailed into Canada’s Northern waters to look for the Northwest Passage. There were 129 men, on two ships – the Erebus and the Terror – in the expedition. Early into their planned 3-year quest both ships and all hands were lost somewhere near the Victoria Straits in the Eastern Arctic. The search for Sir John Franklin, his crew and the two ships, began in 1859 and continues to this day.  Earlier this year a Canadian expedition did locate the shallow wreck of the Erebus. Parks Canada underwater archaeologists – the first to lay eyes on the ship in nearly 170 years – conducted seven dives to the shipwreck over two intensive days of on-site investigation, taking diagnostic measurements, high-resolution photography, and high-definition video. The artifact was ide...

Buy Book Lovers Canada's Best Nonfiction From 2014 (Charles Taylor Prize Longlist Announced!) Originally Posted on Huffington Post: 12/17/2014 5:20 pm EST Updated: 12/18/2014 1:59 pm EST     It is almost Christmas, the stretch run that authors and publishers in Canada live for. As the clock ticks down book buying consumers push some book genre sales an amazing 280 per cent. The industry watchdog Booknet Canada explains the book buying frenzy as consumerism fueled by "desperation dollars." Former Booknet Canada CEO (and now president of Kobo) Michael Tamblyn once described it as the " 'What Do I Buy for Dad? Effect.' All categories see a meteoric rise during the December rush. Book buyers seem to save their trickiest recipients until the end (this week)!" Publishers plan for the Buy For Daddy Effect and release hundreds of n...

Josef Karl Dietrich Josef Karl Dietrich When I worked in the PR department for Litton Systems Canada I often had to take military leaders on plant tours. They wanted to see the company's expertise in making navigation systems for commercial aircraft, war planes and cruise missiles. With a background in Journalism and zero understanding of anything to do with precision engineering, I soon memorized a mostly-true patter that I could deliver while walking backwards down the production lines. Of course, when dealing with people who actually knew something of what they were looking at, I was hopelessly over my head.  No one knew this more than the men and women who spent their working lives at LSL (what we called Litton Systems Canada). Some let me drown, others, like Joe Dietrich always threw me a lifeline - he was always willing to address our guests and explain in detail while Litton was the best. He did in English or in German  and he was always the hit of the tou...