Liz Menard’s Moment
If you’re a visual artist, any day is a good day to open a gallery show but printmaker Liz Menard, left, was especially blessed yesterday as winter sunlight flooded into Scarborough’s bucolic Cedar Ridge Creative Centre adding a little extra sparkle to the reception. Menard’s etchings — together with Camie Geary-Martin’s bronze sculptures — will be on display in the gallery through January 28; meanwhile the printmaker also has a show up at Open Studio (401 Richmond) until February 12.
Menard’s Cedar Ridge exhibition is entirely concerned with nature: landscapes, flowers, branches and birds; many of the etchings are tinted after printing with ink washes and/or watercolours.
“I’m following the traditions of Rembrandt and Goya,” says the effervescent Menard, “this is hardcore, there’s nothing computer generated, there’s no photo etching here, it’s all hand drawn. READ MORE
Exile on Markham Road
I wonder if everyone who meets Rosemary Sullivan for the first time feels like they’ve known her for years. That’s certainly how I felt yesterday when I visited her at her home in Riverdale to talk about being the first poet to be honoured as part of the Poetry is Public is Poetry project. On Monday, three lines of Sullivan’s poem Exile, set in bronze, will be unveiled at the entrance of the newly renovated Cedarbrae Public Library on Markham Road in Scarborough.
a man packed a country
in a suitcase with his shoes
and left
The snippet was chosen by Toronto’s Poet Laureate Dionne Brand with input from an advisory committee; Poetry is Public is Poetry will be Brand’s legacy project, the goal of which is to help transform Toronto’s public realm into an illuminating forum for the written word. The initiative is being realized by City of Toronto’s Cultural Services and Transportation Services working in close co-operation with the Toronto Public Library and the Toronto Public Library Foundation.
Sullivan is delighted with Brand’s choice: “I think they’re exactly the right words,” she said. “I think it’s particularly appropriate for the neighbourhood. The line encapsulates exile and immigration, and for it to be there on Markham Road, I think is great.” READ MORE
A One Minute Film? That’s TUFF!
There’s a lot more than a vowel separating TUFF from TIFF. The Toronto Urban Film Festival will see its share of line-ups but they’ll be on subway platforms where the short-listed one-minute films will be looping for the next week and a half. Eighty films in eight categories explore the urban experience from a variety of perspectives: The City is a Poem, The Emotional City and The Medium is the Message, are three of the quirkier themes.
Each category was whittled down and in a sense curated by a filmmaker who then passed their top 10 picks on to this year’s guest judge, Deepa Mehta, who selected overall winners. “In the past, the grand prize hasn’t always been chosen from the shortlist,” explains Toronto-based documentary filmmaker Min Sook Lee, above, who elected to screen the Urban Ideas and Politics category.
“What struck me was the populist messaging and I thought that was kind of cool,” says Lee. “There’s something about the platform itself that is really appealing and I think some people made work with that in mind.”
Masquerade Master Louis Saldenah
Louis Saldenah is remarkably calm for a man with so much responsibility pressing down on him. A Caribana bandleader since 1977 with 15 Band of the Year titles under his belt (and 11 second place finishes), this Saturday he will bring the largest band in the festival’s 43-year history, more than 2,000 players dancing in 15 fantastically colourful sections.
Provided that Saldenah’s band places in the top eight — a panel of judges scores each group — he’ll be awarded $35,000 from the Festival Management Committee (FMC), the organization that owns and runs the event. Bands scoring in 9th – 14th place receive $21,000 each. If that sounds like a good chunk of change, consider that Saldenah’s 20,000 square foot mas camp (mas is short for masquerade) near St. Clair and O’Connor rents for nearly $7,000 per month. And that’s just the tip of the financial iceberg; there’s material and vehicle costs, a website and brochure to produce, the list goes on and on. Players in each band pay for their own costumes, anywhere from $140 – $175 in Saldenah’s case; the elaborate steel-frame King and Queen costumes are in the $6,000 neighbourhood with the hope that prize money — up to $4,500 — will offset the cost.
By the time I caught up with Saldenah a week and a half ago, things were already winding down at his camp; costumes needed to be ready for pick-up starting this week with different sections booked to collect their glittering gear each day.
