One of my favourite human beings who I never met passed away on the 21st of November. What I loved about him was not only his art itself, but the extraordinary vision behind it. He’s also interesting, because his combination of talents
Man of the world (Passport of Gordon Parks) Way back in the eighties I played with a brilliant and relentless improv saxophonist named Maury Coles, who booked us a series of gigs in the Subway Room of the old Spadina Hotel –
Painting you can hear (top photo) I have a great deal of sympathy for all sorts of creative problems – and like many folks who are tuned for empathy, the weight of daily horrors and unkindness, great and small, can pile up
Self portrait of an idiot (and very grateful learner) I’ve had a lucky run of super-satisfying model gigs lately. Not only were the lessons taught by some of my favourite young teachers – all charged with genuine excitement for art and learning
Looking forward, looking back (Christina Sealey) (As always – click this top photo to see all the images in high-resolution) It’s been a very grey January – but I have a smile on my face today, because one of my favourite working
We saw a truly wonderful show of paper lantern sculptures at the Canadian National Exhibition this year – and they did a fantastic job of being broadly international in their themes – without ever being jerks about it. A very nice example
I still remember the very first time I sat as a model for a class being taught by Bogdan Luca. It was early in the year, this particular group of students were a bit unruly, one foot back in high-school, and it
Caught ‘The Art of Banksy’ show with Nada the other day, and for anyone who is interested in modern art, it is very much worth seeing. Banksy is precisely in that most curious spot where pop-culture, politics and the art world meet.
“The beauty of everything will certainly kill me” (top photo) All paintings and photos in this piece – Courtesy of Tristram Pinney I have met a lot of interesting and beautiful people through Facebook, and as a long-time skeptic, I’m still regularly
Here we see a tiny unmarked and unremarkable door on the exterior of Hart house – I’ve walked by it many times without ever suspecting what lay behind it. But the general design philosophy (and dynamic contrast) behind the deceptively humble portal,
I am of a naturally skeptical bent – but I’m insatiably curious too – so I was intrigued by the idea of the Frank Gehry redesign of our lovely Art Gallery of Ontario, without, at first, being entirely convinced. I was lucky
The world is in a state of considerable upheaval, on a great many fronts at once. I am currently fascinated by (obsessed with) thinking about self-definition and mental health, acculturation and role within community (the very obvious and powerful life-meaning that everyone
Terry Shoffner paints the flyboy – top photo The very best thing about the job of being an art model is that (when you can get a gig) you can expect to find yourself among a group of people who are actively
Carnival at the Rink, Ottawa – 1881 – (Top photo) Born in Paisley, Scotland, Willian Notman moved to Montreal in 1856 when he was thirty, and set up a photography studio. He began with official commissions to document important construction projects, but
Here’s one final piece from the Guillermo Del Toro show (I know, but really, I couldn’t resist) – it’s not the most glamorous or polished instalment, visually – but without doubt, these hand-drawn spreads (and the other notebooks also on display) give
As I mentioned in my first post about Guillermo’s remarkable show, he doesn’t just adore films, paintings and drawings, sculptures props and toys – like so many of us, he first fell in love with the horror genre (and was inspired to
I was a convert to the idea that popular art, particularly sequential art (comics) was true ‘real’ art (without requiring any qualifying subcategory) from roughly the age of ten. 1975 was a cool year for that. Comics wise, we could still read
Caught a wonderful show on the weekend at the AGO – “Living with monsters” which is a sampling from the private collection of the brilliant filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, who began as an amateur illustrator, then worked in special-effects, before finally getting
When people who are into sequential art, comics, and illustration history (an increasingly intersecting set on the venn-diagram, I am happy to report) talk about the science fiction and fantasy pulp of the seventies, ninety percent of the bandwidth usually gets taken
I hope many of my friends were able to see the incredible Turner show at the AGO. The combination of the show and the recent biographical movie made a strong impression on me. (Two previous posts on this) Looking at his work