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Art Farms

Urban Shocker said:
When I was at art school c.1975 I used to drop by Art Metropole occasionally, when they were on Yonge Street, to look at their library. One of them ( a.a. bronson I think ) asked me to deliver a "book" to some friends in New York, since I was going down there on the OCA bus trip to see the galleries. I delivered a small paper-wrapped parcel to an address on the upper west side, the person who opened the door took it from me, said thanks, and closed the door quickly. I assume I was being used as some sort of mule.
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yikes--sounds like a bit of a close call! i never saw the Yonge Street Art Metropole...i started at OCA in 77 and by that time they were in the Richmond St address. i didn't know AA at that time. i knew Tim Guest and Ann Dean a little...
as it happened, i got to know them a bit after i graduated because we were at the same gallery. that was early 80's--i think it was the time of the poodles....
 
Loved dem poodles! Trivia time: Art Metropole were at 241 Yonge and Emanuel Jaques was killed at 245 Yonge in '77.

Tim Guest was sooo cute, but I didn't know him. I assume you've read Rick Bebout's website Promiscuous Affections: A Life in the Bar which has some information about the local art scene at that time?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Loved dem poodles! Trivia time: Art Metropole were at 241 Yonge and Emanuel Jaques was killed at 245 Yonge in '77.

Tim Guest was sooo cute, but I didn't know him. I assume you've read Rick Bebout's website Promiscuous Affections: A Life in the Bar which has some information about the local art scene at that time?
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i didn't know that Art Met was so close to that site...
i've often thought about the shoeshine boy murder, since it led to the Yonge St. "crackdown on perverts" and the homophobic panic of the late 70's. the Toronto Sun had just started i think, and the the murder was their first big 'moral panic' story", that they used to terrorize gays. and then there was that huge demo at Nathan Phillips Square...

From Bentley May's C magazine article about the murder:

"Shortly after the boy's death, a broadcaster popular among Toronto's Portuguese immigrants led a march of 15,000 protestors to the city hall, to demand the cleanup of Yonge Street and more power to the police."
 
Oh it was a rough time to be openly gay - and the bath raids came a few years later too. But what didn't destroy the community made us stronger. I once saw some of the Jaques murderers at Hanlan's Point earlier that summer, walking along the beach with a young boy - quite a creepy bunch of guys.

But back on topic: we should talk a bit about rural artists ...
 
Given the rate at which cheap downtown studio space is disappearing I think we'll be seeing the work of a lot more rural-based ( or, at least, suburban-based ... ) artists in future.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Given the rate at which cheap downtown studio space is disappearing I think we'll be seeing the work of a lot more rural-based ( or, at least, suburban-based ... ) artists in future.
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its true. the number of 'warehouse buildings' that offer live/work spaces for artists must be down to single digits. the building at Niagara and Tecumseth is one of the few remaining genuine loft spaces for artists, and I imagine the only reason it has survived is because of the presence of the abattoir across the road. its amazing to think that buildings like Candy Factory and the old City TV building used to be home to dozens of artists like Michael Snow, and galleries like A Space. i used to live in what became Berkeley Castle, at Esplanade way back in the day, and aside from the fact that it was a dead scary place to live, it was SO cheap! we had about 900 square feet and paid $250 a month for totally raw space. nothing but a hot plate and a bar fridge in the 'kitchen', toilet down the hall, bands practicing at all hours, performance artists running around naked, drug dealers lurking about...ah, the good old days!
 
Yes, I have fond memories of stumbling into several of the buildings on the Esplanade to go to late night parties, in my student days and beyond.

As artists move to suburbia so will the issues they deal with migrate and be reflected in the work they produce.
 
Urban Shocker said:
I don't think she lives there, but Martha Eleen's paintings capture our suburbs and beyond:

http://www.marthaeleen.com/905/index.htm

http://www.marthaeleen.com/necessitiesoflife/index.htm

http://www.marthaeleen.com/peace village/index.htm
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i like those... the best ones remind me of a more naive version of Morandi, they have that same kind of understated taciturn quality.

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Jack Chambers was of course the supreme chronicler of 'suburban living' as a kind of pastoral, back in the 60's and early 70's. i don't think anyone has done it better since.

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That painting of the 401 near London inspired Kurelek's panorama of the Don Valley, now hanging in the AGO. He intended to paint it looking north to suburbia ... but the view downtown won out. The perspective is curious - and technically puzzling - since it looks down on the Viaduct ( with the artist and his kids inserted, looking down into the Valley ). Where was it painted from, I wonder? The apartment buildings on Cambridge would be too far north, I think. From the roof of the senior's building maybe?
 
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