‘I’ve put down roots here and want to make a difference.’

Arts entrepreneur Paul Twyford

Paul Twyford at the Creek Village Gallery with some of the
 fine pewter products, made in Harvey NB, that he retails locally

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Paul Twyford hails from Vancouver and has lived with his wife (the well-known artist Donna Smallenberg), in Woodstock for about 5 years. He has an eclectic career background, having found success in areas from the ministry to book and music retailing. “I’ve always been an entrepreneur with an affinity for the arts,” he says, “and, at the same time, a bit of a non-conformist.” Locally, he has been involved with the McCain Art Gallery and while there he inspired and helped organize the first Art in the Valley Studio Tour in 2012. Twyford also set up the Celtic Fox Coffee House at the O’Toole Gallery and now handles a line of pewter jewellery sold at the Creek Village Gallery and Café in downtown Woodstock where, as a director of the not-for-profit, he handles promotion. Twyford also composes music and has had some of it arranged and produced.

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So Paul, tell me what brought you to beautiful Carleton County.

I was working for a long-distance moving firm in BC and, coincidentally, my wife and I were actually thinking of moving ourselves. Vancouver is a very expensive place to live. Many of our clients were moving to the Maritimes so we started looking online at housing prices in the area. Then we spent a day-and-a-half here and found something with a studio and a river view just outside of Woodstock.

What moved you to set up the coffee house at O’Toole’s?

Since I don’t drink coffee or cook, I naturally decided to set up the Celtic Fox Coffee House (laughs) in a space at the O'Toole Gallery and it flourished. After eighteen months, the business was flourishing. It was getting very busy ─ a coffee house wanting to be a restaurant. Also, we were bringing in entertainment. So I sold the coffee house and began looking for other opportunities.

Like what?

Creek Village Gallery and Café
in downtown Woodstock NB

Four of us ─ my wife, Donna, Suzan Carsley, Susanne Hansen and me ─ developed the co-op concept for the Creek Village Gallery which opened just last April with thirty-five artists and artisans as members.

Do you have an art background yourself?

I’ve drawn and painted but I’m no longer active. When I was in high school, I had an idea that I would perhaps become a commercial artist at some stage. But when I was twenty years old, I had a summer job that entailed interviewing professional artists for spec work. Seeing what they were going through, I thought “I want none of this. These folks are struggling to make a living.”

I can still see your entrepreneurial spirit shining. Being in business downtown, how do you see the ongoing development of the heritage core?

Woodstock is half-way to everywhere and we can become a destination. We have a way to go. Take a look at this year’s New Brunswick official tourism guide; there’s no sense of our being an emerging cultural area. Tourism brings dollars to a local economy. But Woodstock is getting there ─ we’re just looking for even more support and promotion at both the town and provincial level.

My goal for the town would be to see it

 recognized as a centre for the arts and heritage. 

PHOTO: WOODSTOCK TOURISM

Today, if a tourist and asked you what there is to during a weekend here, what would you advise?

Well, breakfast or lunch at the Creek Village Café, of course, then see the art and fine craft in the gallery. If you were here for the Dooryard Arts Festival or Old Home Week or the Studio Tour weekends, I could stop right there. But there’s also the famers’ market and the heritage walking tour is fun. Likewise, Connell House, the old Court House, the Maliseet and Meduxnekeag walking trails, the waterpark for kids. We should encourage more use of our riverside location though. Visitors who linger want to experience the local flavour.




The Maliseet Trail, about 3 km south of Woodstock NB on Highway 165, leads hikers through mixed forest and ends at Hayes Falls (shown here). The trail has a gentle uphill grade.