One way to meet other interesting artists is to get
involved in communities outside your own area.
Toronto is so huge that that's not hard to do.
Flora Doehler, http://floramary.wordpress.com/category/bear-river/
and I met at the Don Valley Art Club, mid-way across
town from my home and studio -- it's true -- our paintings
introduced us. You expect friendships to arise
out of connections with your children's friends' parents
in your community, or fellow dog walkers in your local park,
but we actually met because we admired each other's art.
And Flora introduced me to Carolyn Megill, another amazing
artist and wonderful woman, who ran The Little Art Show (LAS)
for a number of years. I took part in three of those shows.
That project was in support of the Riverdale Art Walk,
and though I never participated in the walk, I supported it
by donating to the art auction Carolyn headed up that helped
fund it. My friends and I had a great time, and saw some amazing
paintings and photography. A classy event the LAS was put on in
the big BMW ballroom down near the Lakeshore, catered with
great food, elegant flowers, a deejay, and cash bar. It was an event
with a capital E. I was very proud of the small paintings I submitted
that helped that art community.
Here's one of them. The photo isn't as clear as it should be,
but you can see that I was working on the King Tut theme
at the time and couldn't wait to put some gold leaf on my
painting. The subject is Rosalind, my boss, whose three quarter
length portrait I did that year.
Through that event I was lucky to get to know Carolyn,
have been to her shows, and even bought one of her
superb paintings, but maybe that's a subject for another
day. It's late.
http://www.carolynmegill.com/
This artist needs to clean up the studio.
Have visually giving day today!
