explorations in toronto art.

I don’t often post about my own image-making practices, but I have to admit to a bit of gallery exhaustion these days. Also, this post will go up while I am away in Ottawa taking a much-needed short holiday, visiting with loved ones, and being away from the computer.

With that out of the way, I want to mention that I’ve begun a gargantuan (and somewhat Sisyphean) task of sorting and organizing my negatives into a usable system, and work to keep my digital image files in similarly good shape. A welcome benefit of doing this is that I get to revisit all kinds of older images, things that never quite made it into any given project I was working on at the time, but my distance from that project allows me to look at it for what it is. I’ve often said that can’t write a good statement about a project until it is long over and I’m able to see it without so much sentimentality, and I think the same is true for these photographic B-sides.

Perfect example: my photographs from a two-week trip to Paris in spring of 2008. I scanned and worked on these almost immediately after I returned, but was shy about showing them to friends; my reluctance came from embarrassment about my fondness for that city, compounded by its cliché nature when photographed, and the fact that I used the Holga camera, which can be an art-student cliché— but my love of it, combined with my reservations about it, are another topic for another day.

But fast forward two years, and I am no longer ashamed about the things that please me:

Pearson airport, 2008

Saint-Sulpice, 2008

Pont D’Austerlitz, 2008

Gare D’Austerlitz, 2008

Chez Georges, Rue des Canettes, 2008

Marcadet, 2008

Cimetière du Pére Lachaise, 2008

Versailles, 2008

Trianon, 2008

These are all images that don’t form a cohesive body; they simply act as a record of where I was, what I was doing, and what I felt like photographing. It’s a welcome shift from the way I’ve been thinking lately. Revisiting these images personally, and sharing what hasn’t been shared before, is valuable to re-evaluate and readjust my perspective and aesthetics. I’ve always enjoyed the famous quotation from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and while it may be a little extreme, it certainly applies to art practices— pausing for reflection and criticism is always useful.

I’ve been digging into some of my back-burner projects, as I try (but often fail) to do during periods of downtime. Right now, the project is to revisit and work on some photos I made during a trip to Iceland, more than one year ago now. I processed the film and scanned them almost as soon as I got back, but then quickly got wrapped up in something else.
Now I’m looking at them, along with other images I made around the same time, during a trip to Montreal. Most of these are just fun, sentimental pictures, but it’s kind of mind-boggling how easily I had forgotten about them.. partly due to the usual “sands-of-time” sort of reasons, but probably more due to some flaw in my workflow and image filing.

Here’s a selection of some favourites that I had forgotten about:

Sabrina and I made a trip to Montreal with Bob in May of last year, for visiting and preparing for Le Mois de la Photo. Sabrina and I bought some fancy foraged mushrooms at the farmers’ market, and this is a photo of the dinner prep (we ate them with peas and asparagus, in pasta with some cream.) We/I got cold feet on the mushrooms at the last minute, fearing their safety.. but that’s another story.

Here is a diptych of the train ride home.

Here is a terrible scan of a landscape.. but just to look at it I can’t tell where it is. Most likely Iceland or the Ottawa river.

My brief visit to Ottawa over Thanksgiving weekend happily included one of the greatest pleasures of my neighbourhood: walking to the bagel shop on a crisp day, and bringing home a steaming warm bag of delicious baked goodness; cradling it sideways like a baby so the ones at the bottom don’t get squished, and taking a peek and a whiff every so often.

bagels.

Bagels have a special place in my heart for a few reasons (not the least of which is that they are delicious!), and a bite of a fresh bagel brings me back to a few fond experiences. The first time I recall going to the bagel shop with my dad on a weekend morning, it was when I must have been seven, around the time we moved to the neighbourhood where my parents still live (and which I firmly believe is the best neighbourhood in Ottawa, but that’s another story.)

When I was a kid, my dad took my brother and I out somewhere every Saturday morning without fail, to get us out of the house so my mom could have some peace and quiet in which to sleep late. I recall many of those times involving walks to the bagel shop, and the best part was getting to eat a hot bagel on the walk home.

I could hardly write about bagels without mentioning Montréal. I’m not going to get into the Fairmount vs St-Viateur debate, because obviously both are delicious, wood-fired worlds away from what I’ve found in Toronto so far. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, but after four years here, I have yet to eat a satisfactory bagel. Which makes my trips to Montréal that much more satisfying.

A year or so ago, I visited my friend who lived in Mile-End at the time, and after a fun night at the pub, we tromped our way home through the snow at 3am. Our walk wouldn’t be complete without stopping at St-Viateur, conveniently on the way home, to pick up hot bagels. Back at the house, we toasted them and dipped them in cream cheese, not even bothering to slice or spread. Between us we devoured half the bag, giggling drunkenly and chatting about everything. It was a huge contrast to my childhood bagel memories, but no less heavenly.