• 2005 2007 vending in toronto Queen St. West and Sunnyside park2005 2007 vending in toronto Queen St. West and Sunnyside park
• 2008 96 spadina studio Storage unit and work area2008 96 spadina studio Storage unit and work area
• 2008 Extempore S&G Movable storage unit2008 Extempore S&G Movable storage unit
• 2008 2009 Extempore S&G custom built drafting top2008 2009 Extempore S&G custom built drafting top
• 2008 Extempore S&G widelanse colin barrett42008 Extempore S&G widelanse colin barrett4
• 2009 12 141 Spadina and Richmond Extempore Studio & Gallery2009 12 141 Spadina and Richmond Extempore Studio & Gallery
• 2009 12 Extempore S&G Main section shot from the entrance2009 12 Extempore S&G Main section shot from the entrance
• 2010 03 Extempore Studio and Gallery Toronto Ontario 2010 03 Extempore Studio and Gallery Toronto Ontario

 

Artist Statement

A studio space in essential part of my practice. Currently I am involved with the Extempore Studio & Gallery artistic collective. My growing skills in design, building and customization have contributed to the creation of multiple work environments within this and other spaces (i.e. painting, silk-screening, and sculpture installation.)

Early on:

I fell in love with working in a studio setting in my second year at the Ontario College of Art and Design, when I started to use the facilities to a much greater extent. My favorite space was a large studio with a spotlight. I would often gather easels in a circle around a table which would be situated in the middle of the space and pointing  the spotlight on it.  Turning off all the other lights and turning on my music I would loose myself in the drawing of  “The Infernal Machine“. By the time I got to my thesis year I was using the studio facilities sixty hours a week on average.

Public studio work and vending:

In the summer of 2004 my friend, Mike Parsons asked me if I would be interested in coming to Queen street west with him and few other friends to create work and sell it in a public environment. Having been doing public installations of artwork already I had a taste for interacting directly with the audience. Painting and drawing on the street posed a number of logistical difficulties (ie. winds, by-law officers, dust, ect.) but the occasional sale and general interaction with the people kept me going on Queen street till the end of the summer of 2005. That summer alone I produced a tone of new work including starting two major series, “The Players” and “Nuclear Enlightenment“. The summer after that I focused on painting in parks mostly around the Sunnyside Pavilion on the waterfront eventually taking my vending on the road to cities like Montreal,  New York, Venice and Dublin.

96 Spadina, Darling building, Artscape studios:

With some decent income coming in from my wood fabrication work at MCM 2001 I was finally able to rent a studio. Having signed up with Artscape I got lucky and after a couple of weeks I signed a two year lease with them early in 2007 for an amazing space in the Darling building. Working there was amazing. I was renting a part of a very large space and because I was often there by myself I would simply utilize the rest of the studio for my own purposes. While there I started to develop the mixed-media “Cutouts” series of work with which I vended in Europe. Unfortunately Artscape lost the lease on the floors it was renting and had to cancel all the lease agreements with the artist that were working on its two floors. It was an amazing 8 months.

60 Kensington, Extempore Studio & Gallery:

Julie McMillan and Gosia Komorski started Extempore Studio & Gallery about the same time I started leasing from Artscape. When my lease came to an abrupt end luckily these two women were about expend into a bigger space within the Kensington Mall. Some of the people involved in the new expansion were people I have already build friendships with and have done a lot of different art activity together. I signed on moving in December 2007. It was a very unique space. It use to be a store, turned into a parking lot, turned into random storage spaces, turned into random commercial entities. We were the third space in, no windows and double garage doors. Within a few weeks Julie, Gosia and I rejuvenated the dilapidated garage doors turning one of them into a unique showing space for art where over a course of a year we held four separate shows and a few ongoing displays of art from members. In the first year things were going smoothly. Here I also developed the third installment in my “The Players” series – “Women” .

The mall was rejuvenated with more commercial activity which brought a lot of unsuspecting people to our space making them aware of the creative undercurrent which we are perpetuating. Unfortunately Max Fisher, the owner of the building died under tragic circumstances in late December of 2008 soon after our most successful opening. Things after that never regained the momentum we have built up in the space. Unimaginative and difficult new landlords coupled with increased illegal activity deeper within the mall motivated us to move on to a new location.

141 Spadina and Richmond, Extempore Studio & Gallery:

After an energetic search where we saw a lot of potential locations we settled on the most promising one. 141 Spadina combines a great location, even lighting, and an amazing interior space. It was ready to be moved into requiring no maintenance. Most importantly it has a big window and a host of emerging young businesses, everything that our previous space did not have. Here we are able to merge the Studio environment with that of a Gallery to a much nicer extent than previously. The space offers a wonderful intimate setting with the old beams and new drywall. Things are going well.