Toronto Art Expo 2012

With more than 200 Canadian and International artists and galleries in attendance, Toronto Art Expo featured a variety of styles that appealed to a broad spectrum of art collectors.

Dubbed “the affordable art fair,” the expo didn’t live up to its name with the cheapest piece being more than $600.

While most of the artists were more than happy for patrons to snap photos of their works, some artists were hesitant and dare I say paranoid that some devious person will create a poster of a work and make ridiculous profits from it.

I thought exposure was essential for an artist. Wouldn’t someone taking a photo of your work eventually bring exposure? Sure, you don’t see any profit immediately, but the long-term benefit could be enormous.

Despite its conservative exhibitors, Toronto Art Expo is a great opportunity to experience a large collection of different artists, styles and influences in one building. Just don’t forget your checkbook or your bargaining skills.

Artist: Sunita Jariwala-Gajjar | Title: Ponte Sant’ Angelo | Medium: Digital/Mix Media | Year: 2011 | Size: 36″ x 24″

Artist: Sammo | Title: “The Introduction #8″ | Medium: Acrylic & Oil On Canvas | Year: 2012 | Size: 36″ x 48″

Artist: Mika | Title: Violette | Size: 30″ x 40″ | Medium: Oil On Canvas

Artist: Georges C. | Title: Photo 7 | Size: 40″ x 40″ | Medium: Acrylic on Wood

Title: “Gentle Waters” | Medium: Original on Wood Panel | Size: 32″ x 60″

Title: Fleur Des Neiges | Size: 96″ x 48″

Artist: Richard Foster | Title: “Diversity” | Medium: Acrylic on Canvas | Size: 22″ x 60″

Artist: Vera Saiko | Title: “Decision” | Medium: Charcoal, Acrylic on Canvas

Artist: Annie Maisonneuve | Title: “Sans Titre” | Year: 2012 | Size: 36″ x 36″

Artist: Tone | Title: “Gadjee” | Mixed Technique On Canvas | 48″x48″

- Curtis Sindrey, Art Gallery of Mississauga Intern

Con Spirito | Lila Lewis Irving | A Note From Gwen Tooth

The first time was at a two-day workshop at Neilson Park Creative Centre.

When Curry’s Art Store had their art school some years ago, I attended two five day workshops in which Lila shared her energetic spirit of painting with us. I will never forget her constant mantra “five to seven shapes, five to seven shapes…”, heard as we forged our way through various painting exercises in black and white shapes and values, and then moved into colour, getting larger and larger each time.

At a five-day painting retreat and workshop at Bridgewater, near Actinolite, we could paint all day and all night. My fondest memories from that workshop were of Lila showing us some Tai Chi moves on the porch and of her inviting us to her cabin to listen to one of the operas from “The Ring” series on radio.

The most important thing I learned from Lila was when she told all of her students that we could do this on our own, and that we no longer needed her direction. We just needed the strength to take that next step.

That is when I started to make breakthroughs on what I really wanted to express.

Lila paints through emotion. I paint to express energy, soul and mood, intuitively connecting with the energies of bodies of water, and also, in some series, with the various moods of people in relationships.

- Gwen Tooth

Con Spirito | Lila Lewis Irving | A Note From John Rowsome

Lila Lewis Irving is the best of the best and as she is not shy of meeting challenges head-on, agreed to carve several weeks out of her creative life each year to do the impossible…with remarkable success and adulation.

Many aspiring artists flock to Haliburton, Ontario to work hard, be inspired, exposed and altered. Lila is on a relentless quest to instill a deep understanding of the technical applications and merits of this unique abstract art form while channeling each student to free their mind and instinctively apply paint to canvass…with confidence and without hesitation.

By day two you will likely have completed over 70 sketches, shapes, elements, contrasts and small coloured abstractions of one kind or another.

By day five Lila requires that all students complete seven full works on canvas, completed within a span of 5-10 minutes each.  The results are amazing, just about as amazing as the wonderful way in which she gently transports you from the person you were, to  five days later, an abstractionist with a glimmer of hope.

Lila stretches her students like she does her canvas and she boldly extols the courage of clearing the mind like she throws her acrylic paint…with conviction.

- John Rowsome

Con Spirito | Lila Lewis Irving | A Note From Janina Brooks

Three years ago I had the privilege and good fortune to attend my first class with Lila Lewis Irving.

My favourite memory is watching Lila pour paints, manipulating shapes and colours using her “tools” and voila, a few minutes later a beautiful painting.

Lila taught me many things, using big brushes, tools, boldness, importance of design but most of all to follow my intuition. I was going through a creative block, frustrated and depressed I emailed Lila and her words of wisdom were: keep painting through the blocks and if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen

Since then I have continued to employ her methods and am now finally following my bliss.

-Janina Brooks

Con Spirito | Lila Lewis Irving | A Note From Eleanor Fish

“Lila is a tour de force – as an artist, a personality and as a teacher. I have taken weeklong summer courses instructed by her for the past 3 years – and will do so again this year. A formidable personality and teacher!”

- Eleanor Fish
Director, Arthritis & Autoimmunity Research Centre, University Health Network. Head, Division of Cell & Mol. Biology, Toronto General Research Institute, University Health Network, Professor, Dept. of Immunology, University of Toronto.

Con Spirito | Lila Lewis Irving | A Note From The Teacher

With a career that has spanned over 50 years, and a following of devoted fans, Lila Lewis Irving’s latest exhibition Lila Lewis Irving: Con Spirito | Retrospective will conclude on April 29 at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM).

Throughout the late 1980s, Irving was a pupil of famed American abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler who is best known for her work Mountains and Sea (1952).

The exhibition featured Irving’s selected works through more than three decades including woodcut prints from the 1970s, watercolour and gouache on paper from the 1980s and acrylics on paper and canvas from the 1990s.

The exhibition also featured multimedia components with an accompanying book and documentary film.

Appassionata was published in celebration of Irving’s life and body of work and features entries from many of her friends, followers and art professionals alike.

Con Spirito, a 30-minute film, chronicled Irving’s creative process, which she has been perfecting for decades. Produced by Chris Vandijk and edited by Joel-Adam Powley, the film details Irving’s approach to life and her work and how she grew to become an artist.

As April 29 approaches, the AGM will continue to celebrate Irving’s work through a series of blog posts based on entries written by Irving’s own students. The posts will contain memorable anecdotes of what her students best remember of Irving and her teaching methods.

ART STORY | Workshop Stories

On March Break, the Art Gallery of Mississauga and the Mississauga Library System hosted TELL ME A STORY: An Art-Inspired Creative Writing Workshop for Youth. Participants, aged 10 – 19, were asked to choose from a selection of works from the AGM’s Permanent Art Collection, or the AGM’s current exhibition, Lila Lewis Irving: Con Spirito | Retrospective. The AGM provided captions for some of the works, to inspire imaginative storytelling. Participants were given 30 minutes to come up with their stories.

The inspiration for the workshop came from Chris Van Allsburg’s Chronicles of Harris Burdick, which features short stories  inspired by Van Allsburg’s illustrations and created by writers such as Stephen King and Lois Lowry. Thanks to the support of Thomas Allen Ltd, ten of the participants were also given signed copies of Chronicles of Harris Burdick or the original Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

Tom Forrestall, Tide, Ebb and Waiting (ed. 45/150)
From the Art Gallery of Mississauga’s Permanent Art Collection

Every day, at 3 pm, the car was there.

Every day, at 3 pm, the car was there
By Inderjit Deogun 

One year, three months, five days, seven hours and forty-five seconds. That’s how long it’s been since my wife died.

***

Nights are the worst. That’s when I miss her the most. Like the darkness, it creeps up on me and I lie awake paralyzed by it. But that’s not the only terror that night brings. At night is when my body aches; every fiber screams for her. After all this time, my body still remembers what it was like to breathe her in, to kiss her lips, to touch her skin, to feel her warmth. When the loneliness threatens to drive me mad, as it always does, I come here, to her library.

I like to believe it was the library of her dreams. On our tenth date, walking along the Toronto Harbourfront, she spotted a child reading and began to recount a scene from Beauty and the Beast. The way her eyes lit up at the memory left me mesmerized. I knew what I had to do. It took me almost a year to build, with months of planning and sifting through magazines, books and stores, all the while asking her inconspicuous questions. She never once suspected that one of her dreams was about to come true.

***

I met her thirteen years ago on this very dock. The day was Saturday, August 14, 1999. I laid eyes on her at precisely 3 p.m. Now I come here every day to relive that moment.

***

As soon as you walk in, there’s her desk, which faces the entrance. If you’re sitting at the desk, you lay eyes on an illustration of a tree that bears books rather than fruit. The image is a reimagining of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Beyond the desk is a bay window that looks out on the apple tree she planted when we first moved in. On either side of the room are wall-to-wall, built-in, mahogany bookshelves with glass doors. The walls are honeysuckle yellow. And in the middle of the room there’s a circular rug featuring a compass.

I surprised her with the library on our first wedding anniversary. In gold lettering I engraved in the door: “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” I wondered if she thought I was nuts putting this quote on the door of what was supposed to be my game room. She entered the library without saying a word. Stopped on the rug and took in every detail circling around again and again. It was a clear day so both the library and my wife were bathed in brilliant sunlight. Her silence made me afraid. Had I done something wrong? I was just about to speak when she walked over, looked me straight in the eyes with tears running down her cheeks and said, “Thank you.” Two words, that’s all. It was enough for me.

When I enter it now, everything is as she left it: The Book Thief lies unfinished by the bay window. I can’t bring myself to move it because if I do I feel like I’m erasing her. She left her bookmark on page 416; the name of the chapter is “Punishment”, she’ll never know how that book ends.

***

If I stand exactly where she was standing on the docks, I swear I can feel the beating of her heart next to mine. For a whisper in time, she’s not a memory anymore. She’s with me again, my wife.