explorations in toronto art.

Big changes have been happening in my personal life.  Even though they were set in motion months ago, I’m still adjusting to the impact of a new job and a new apartment and thus have been taking a break from writing. It’s been a month since I last posted here, but I’m back to give a quick update on the bits and pieces of art that I have managed to include in my life recently.

CONTACT photography festival. I saw some terrific exhibitions, most notably Dynamic Landscape, the feature exhibition at MoCCA. I know, so predictable of me. Fred Herzog, also at MoCCA, was another highlight.

Vancouver and Victoria visiting. I spent a week in these two fine cities, for purely holiday reasons, but I did see some art while I was there. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria featured a surprisingly wide array of exhibitions for a smallish space; though three were garden-themed and one was on the ever-present Emily Carr, I was really impressed. The Vancouver Art Gallery (whose acronym is so frequently repeated with a straight face around the office, I no longer snicker like a twelve-year-old) was equally awesome. The Ken Lum exhibition was a fitting introduction to the city’s art scene, as it featured his signage-based works, documentation around the public art piece Monument for East Vancouver, and one of the best-designed exhibition info cards I’ve ever seen. The other exhibitions were good, too, but Ken Lum really stood out. (In my experience and especially at art school, any discussion of the ‘Vancouver School’ was inevitably dominated by Jeff Wall, so though I knew Lum by name, I don’t think I’d ever actually seen his work before.)

Workshop/critique. On Tuesday night I led a critique group made up of four members of Gallery 44 (where I am also a member.) It was really heartening to discuss developing bodies of work with people who have careers in other fields, but make space in their lives to nurture their passion for photography and image-making. I was impressed by the quality of work, the sophistication of the way participants discussed their ideas, and the general quality of discussion that arose from the evening. (Not that I was expecting anything less! G44 members have repeatedly shown themselves to be a very engaged and savvy bunch.)

Lucky me, I also got to be on the receiving end of some workshop/seminar experiences: this week was MagNet, and I went to two inspiring and interesting sessions. Spring has tended to be a time when the feeling I call “gallery fatigue” sets in, so I’m hoping both of these will reignite my enthusiasm for what I do, both at my day job and in my writing projects.

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.