One Thing Leads to Another...

On my 50th birthday, 2013, I received a call that I'll never forget.  It wasn't some sort of memorable birthday salutation, but rather an art-related phone call that ultimately proved that when one door closes, another...in fact many...end up opening. 

The backstory: The Toronto Public Library has gallery spaces at many of its branches and artists can apply for a month's exhibition at the branch of their choice.  I thought it sounded interesting so I applied for a space at the Mimico branch, since at the time I lived just around the corner and would be able to easily pop in on the show during its appointed month.  In early 2013 I was accepted and told that my exhibit would be up for the month of December.  My thoughts immediately jumped to doing a Christmas Carol show...something I had long mused about (the era suits my style), and since it would be in a literary setting, and in December, I felt the time was right for it.
I planned for six large paintings and set down to work nice and early in July so that I'd make the December deadline.  By November 17th, my birthday, I was in the painting home-stretch when I got the aforementioned call. 
The branch was going to be closed for the month of December for major renovations.  But the nice lady on the line said the library would be happy to give me a slot in April or May.  I thanked her for the generous offer but informed her that I had painted a Christmas Carol show that likely wouldn't have much audience traction in early summer.  And so began a series of calls and emails to dig up another venue. 

 The exhibit did ultimately end up getting into the library for two weeks because of a construction delay, and that fortnight's worth of reprieve enabled me to secure another venue.  On the suggestion of a friend I called Montgomery's Inn Historic House in west Toronto, and told them about my vagrant exhibit that needed a home.  As luck would have it, while their main room was booked, they had their hallway gallery available and were happy to take it in.  So that's where the paintings came to reside for the second half of December, 2013.

It turned out Monty's was the perfect venue for "A Christmas Carol".  In addition to being a busier place, with many historic activities taking place, the house itself was built pretty much at the same time that Dickens penned his famous novella.
The staff at Monty's thought it the right fit too, and so in 2014 I was invited to bring the exhibit back for the whole Christmas season, and this time I could have the entire main community room.  The added space meant room to expand the exhibit, and so I painted an additional four pieces to bring the total to ten.  That year also the inn used my paintings as their Christmas cards to send out to 100 staff and volunteers.

But the best bit of serendipity came next.  It turns out the Humber River Shakespeare theatre company had a travelling adaptation of Christmas Carol that they performed throughout the region, and their "home field" happened to be Montgomery's community room.  This talented troupe would be performing their version of the play in the very same room the exhibit was hanging in.

The theatre company also recognized the potential of this co-habitation, and asked if they could use my paintings as their official artwork for promoting the show.  I of course agreed, and in return they sold my cards pre-show in the lobbies of the respective venues.  Before long, reproductions of my Scrooge paintings were all over the place.  That's what caught the eye of the curator of the Aurora Cultural Centre.  

After Christmas of 2014 I got a call from Clare Bolton of the Aurora Cultural Centre.  She asked if the Christmas Carol paintings could come to their facility for 2015.  The centre  is located in an impressive old brick schoolhouse that dates to the 1870s.  

In fact, so grand a venue it is that even the expanded 10 piece Christmas Carol show wouldn't be able to fill it.  And so, not only did the Scrooge paintings make their way north, but we augmented the show with a dozen or so winter paintings of both mine and my brother Ross' and renamed it "Snow Days including A Christmas Carol".  

The gala was a huge success in part due to a concert taking place at the same time in the building.  And a final stroke of good luck was that since Aurora actually closes during Christmas proper, I was able to move the exhibit back down to Montgomery's where it again took up residence in the hallway gallery for the week between Christmas and New Years.  

Since 2015 I've maintained contact with both of these marvelous venues, and many other artistic projects have flowed from those associations.  I've done pop-up markets at both.  Conducted painting demos at Aurora.  

And I've curated other shows at both places as well, which enabled me to involve other artists.  At Montgomery's Ross, Ken Kirsch and I teamed up for "Hogtown High" a Toronto history retrospective.  And I also hosted "The Haunted Canvas" one October, featuring "spooky" works for the Hallowe'en season.  And as for the "Christmas Carol", it has been a tradition now at Montgomery's since 2013.

The Aurora Cultural Centre became the flagship stop on the five city "1917 - Canada Comes of Age" show that Ross and I curated.  That show ended up at Monty's too for good measure.

And thus it was that a very happy association between all these parties came to be.  Had my Christmas Carol exhibit merely served its one-month stint at the library without incident then perhaps none of the subsequent good fortune would have occurred. It only serves to show how a seemingly bad turn of events can actually lead to much, much better things.

One door closes...