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art music food celebrating MOSS PARK
PEOPLE, PLACE & HISTORY
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About Us
The Beginning
Amazing Moss Park painted by John G. Howard, 1827 depicting two hikers on Queen St pointing to the William Allan mansion. Later occupied by his son, George William Allan 1853 who was a politician but also President of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Conservatory of Music.
Who We Are
We are residents, neighbours, business owners, and friends of the neighbourhood who believe that the heritage of Moss Park should have a bearing on how we respect and use the park & neighbourhood today--a place of enjoyment and beauty for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Photograph -William Allan Mansion, which has been demolished and is the present site of federal Armory.
Celebrating Our Heritage -
FREE WALKING TOURS
Moss Park: Past and Present
June 16, 2019
Explore the Moss Park neighbourhood along historic Queen East. Discover remnants of the past and uncover the hidden legacy of this downtown community. From an industrious beginning to an era of urban decline, Moss Park remains a collection of forgotten tales stretching back to the very origins of the city itself.
Join local historian Andre Bermon on June 16th at the King-Parliament Study Pop-up location at 73 Jarvis Street (just south of Adelaide). The tour will be approximately an hour in length. 10:30 to 11:30 am
To register for the tour and other great events please checkout www.toronto.ca/king-parliament
(Click the green register button and scroll down to the last event to find the Moss Park Walking Tour)
ONE GALS TORONTO APRIL 18, 2018
https://onegalstoronto.wordpress.com/
https://tayloronhistory.com/2016/11/08/moss-park-home-of-william-allan/
http://wholemap.com/historic/toronto.php?neighbourhood=Moss%20Park
ART FAIR AMAZING MOSS PARK ARTISTS ----SAT SEPT 26TH , 2020
GISELLE SILVESTRI
GISELLE SILVESTRI
GISELLE SILVESTRI
Giselle Silvestri states, “I continuously investigate the age-old struggle of good versus evil, rich versus poor, and east versus west.” She finds inspiration in “mass media icons- popular images both new and old to address serious topics, sometimes adding a touch of humour.” Giselle’s pop images are timeless and her paintings are tongue in cheek versions of good versus evil. Giselle has contributed towards the building of the first library for girls in Afghanistan through ACA Gallery.
Instagram @giselle_silvestri
DAN PHILIPS
GISELLE SILVESTRI
GISELLE SILVESTRI
Dan Philips is a multimedia artist who had his last show at Botte Gallery in Corktown. Dan works in a variety of media with a background in the creation and production of digital media, as well as a hands on look with materials and textiles on canvas. Dan started out at the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts and since retiring has returned to creating works that have a societal message.
Instagram @danieljosephphilips
www.flickr.com/photos/danphilips/albums/72157711484244582
ALAN MCKEE
GISELLE SILVESTRI
MELANIE BILLARK
Digital art and technology realizes the dream of the Impressionists, to paint with light, and allows us to create works with more vivid colours than was possible before digital art. The colour space of “natural” media was always dulled by the binders and admixtures necessary to hold the paint or chalk together. My digital art paintbrush is a pressure sensitive Wacom stylus and my digital paints are made of light in all the visible colours of the spectrum. I also use traditional photography tools like my medium format Rolleiflex, and large format Ebony camera. These are my building blocks in combination with my digital skills.
I hope the resulting 'new vision', a term I borrow from Moholy Nagy, will engage the viewer to re-look at nature at this critical time of earth changes. I believe the fragility of nature can only be captured fully in this new altered medium. The viewer is caught off guard as he/she is viewing nature but from a new perspective in terms of the macrocosm.
Instagram @digital_artist_painter
MELANIE BILLARK
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
MELANIE BILLARK
Melanie Billark is an emerging, multi-disciplinary, Toronto based artist. Her body of work surrounds themes of social and political issues that effect and surround principals of ecology. Her work strives to create awareness to various environmental issues within the public sphere.
Melanie achieved an advanced diploma in 2011 at Sheridan College’s Craft and Design Program for glass in Oakville, ON. She majored in kiln forming and minored in sand casting. Following her degree she completed a year artist residency at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, ON, in 2012. Melanie’s glasswork has been showed in a number of galleries and displayed in various spaces across the GTA. Such venues include Toronto’s Pearson Airport, OCC, and has participated in a number of local arts and craft based shows.
Through this experience Melanie's trajectory began to shift, realizing that she no longer wanted to contribute more objects into this over-filled world and add to consumer culture. Melanie's priorities as an artist drastically shifted allowing her to find a way to consider what she can do for the environment, allowing her practice to become a form of restoration and process of healing.
MICHAEL SILLERS
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
Michael Sillers’ interest in computer technology has led him to explore the combination of traditional visual art techniques with digital photography. The results have been described as "having infused the industrial, urban and rural landscape with an ethereal romanticism". His work has also been referred to as "having achieved a fusion of historical and traditional sensitivities with contemporary insight and a classical visualization of the world made possible through the versatility of digital and electronic tools".
HIS WORK has been exhibited internationally in Argentina, the United States (California and Texas) and in Canada, most notably in Toronto and across Ontario, as well as in Montreal, Quebec.
SILLERS continues to produce artwork that combines the painterly with the digital.
www.pollydude.com
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
COLOUR BLOTS BY ANGELA
Toronto-based Colour Blots Creative is passionate about bringing colour and wonder to your world!
Each piece is hand-made and unique. Once it's gone, it's gone!
Colour blots creative by Angela is the work of an emerging artist, launching in 2018. Although the artist has previously engaged in mixed media or pottery, the current work is focused on acrylic painting with various techniques including acrylic pouring. This technique involves layering paint and allowing colours of different densities to separate, causing unique cells and shapes to form. Acrylic pouring is practice in patience and letting go of expectations — one can never predict the final outcome! The Amazing Moss Park Art Fair will be colour blots creative’s first public display of art!
Instagram @colourblots
www.colour-blots.square.site
JULIE AMLIN
JULIE AMLIN
JULIE AMLIN
Julie Amlin is a Toronto-based artist whose practice includes and mixes disciplines of drawing, painting, cermamics, print-making and fiber art. Amlin’s current work explores the significant way that colour is connected to our emotions and encourages the emergence of the innate explorer in us all as she believes there is wisdom within the practice of mindful observation. Her work pulls from personal nostalgia and the palpable essence of tradition in textiles, colour palettes, pattern, and materials to create sensory playfulness. Through her vibrant textural landscapes, Amlin seeks to create a space where the viewer is encouraged to forage through detail and ponder how physical form attaches to internal dialogue.
Instagram @julieamlin.art
SALLY KOU
JULIE AMLIN
JULIE AMLIN
Sally Kou is a self taught artist who creates mixed media illustrations. She has a natural talent for writing and also enjoys using writing as a form of expression. She's created concept art for different fashion brands, and illustrative posters for local businesses. Her work is eccentric, colorful, and whimsical usually specializing in animals, female illustrations, and nature. Aside from her content working with clients, she has self initiated a brand of a series characters used for storytelling, in art, and product called KOU KOU WORLD and a cookie business.
Her field of study is in fashion design and her other passions involve yoga, spirituality, mystical teachings, food, and nature.
Artist, Writer, Illustrator, and Entrepreneur
Instagram @sallykou
ELAINE STEWART
ELAINE STEWART
ELAINE STEWART
Elaine Stewart has spent her life working with fabrics. Later in life she returned to school and studied art. She resisted incorporating
textiles into her art practise but sometimes a medium is not willing to be put aside.
As she welcomed fibres and threads into her art practise she began to hear new stories. Each time she sets out on a voyage of exploration the materials
take her in different directions. The forthcoming trip will focus on her gratitude to Gaia.
Note- Image shown
'dirty laundry’ 2020 wheels of thread suspended on transparent fibre with graphite overlays
Instagram @myatelier55
WILLOW + WYRD
ELAINE STEWART
ELAINE STEWART
Luxury designs by a creative architect & a designer in Toronto, Canada, bringing beautiful art to the everyday.
Carol, the creative architect after recovering from breast cancer felt that despite being ill and nothing would fit, that one needed to surround themselves with beauty. A pair of shoes, a piece of jewellery even a scarf to dress up without spending money on a new wardrobe. Alan, the designer believes that beauty itself is a form of spiritual food and healing. He is particularly inspired by nature forms. Carol and Alan have both been “makers” from childhood. Carol has curated the works of many national and international artists. Both have worked in many media, from large photographic pieces to unique hand sewn works of art. Both have been professional paid creatives for many years.
Designed and handmade in Canada with the finest materials.
Inspired by the natural world & paying homage to antique illustrations. We strive to bring extraordinary beauty into the every day.
Hand Made with Conscious Love & Respect for the Earth
Instagram @artforbeautifulliving
Michael Jenkins
“Paint By Numbers”
I am currently pursuing a project that I refer to as “Paint By Numbers”. I work with my own photos (Nikon DSLR and Android cell phone camera). I then use Photoshop and a stylus to digitally “paint” the photos, transforming them into some- thing that is a new interpretation of the original image. My photos are typically of routine or mundane places around the city and occasionally outside of the city. Usually these images are of something or somewhere, that most might find plain, boring or even ugly. These photos are often landscapes, architectural or industrial images. They can also take on and become a form of historical documentation. Scenes and images like this, are often overlooked because they are so mundane but, perhaps this is exactly why they should be given a second look.
Instagram @mjenkins.art_toronto
BRIAN A HAWKINS
Brian A. Hawkins was born in Hamilton because his parents did not have a car. A graduate from the Ontario College of Art, he was banned from Life Classes for tracing, however the French love to trace each other with their hands and granted him a scholarship to study TV graphic and set design at Radio Television Française in Paris. He morphed into a writer-producer-artist, enjoying an international career living and working in London, New York, Tokyo and Sydney. Using an Albanian passport, creative assignments have taken him to 18 countries and he has won a number of international awards through blackmail and bribery.
Now retired and living in Toronto, he returned to the easel and began painting again. A figurative painter who has had five one-man shows [only one man turned up], his work hangs in attics and behind furnaces in England, France, North America and as far away as New Zealand
Recently he has been exploring images that breakout of the frame or link together to make a statement and optical illusions that cause portraits to follow you with their eyes or turn their head when you pass them.
When he runs out of Titanium White, he puts down the brush and takes up the pen to write mundane fictional novels that innocent people purchase from Amazon. So far he has written four novels and is now writing his fifth which is really his first novel with name changes and a new cover.
A lover of all things Art Deco, he is hoping that a merciful French Government will forgive that unfortunate incident in the Musée d’Orsay and allow him back into France.
ART-Can Change The World
Inspiring Art
art can change the world
Call for artists in any medium to exhibit
Send email message with Art in SUBJECT line.
Amazing Moss Park Art Fair and a call for artists. We will be hosting small pop ups in the neighbourhood, as well as larger exhibits. If it sounds like the kind of thing you’d like to be involved with, contact us.
NO FEE -SEND Name, email address, art website, CV and Artist Statement.
Moss Park was named for the large amounts of moss that grew on the estate home of the Allan family, who had emigrated from Huntley, Scotland. The original home stood on the west side of Sherbourne between Queen and Shuter St. It was demolished to make way for urban renewal. Nothing remains of the park except its name. Willian Allan’s son, George William Allan was a lawyer, the 11th Mayor of Toronto and Speaker of the Senate. He presided over the Ontario Society of artists, had a true passion for the arts and was a patron of Paul Kane.
During 2004-08 on Queen St East, directly across from Moss Park, ACA Gallery (art can change the world), started out with the ambitious brief that art really could change the world. The gallery brought together a disparate group of artists, who really shared only one thing: the desire to have their art make a genuine social impact and change people’s lives for the better. What started as a grassroots, arts focused group reached out locally to cancer patients with funds for first and last months rent. Then things led to building the first hospice at Wounded Knee so Native Americans did not have to leave their home to die. Then, to our astonishment, the opportunity arose to collect and pack 15,000 lbs of medical supplies for Afghanistan in the first humanitarian aid delivered via the US State Department.
When I first went to Afghanistan, I wondered how a small group of artists and humanitarians ended up in the middle of a war zone negotiating a massive airlift. Then I looked around at the people for whom daily life was a huge effort, and each day of survival a huge victory. I realized that no matter how small or big the act, if it was filled with love and generosity it would lead inevitably to an open heart and a better world.
With this premise, that small loving acts can change the world, I announce the Amazing Moss Park Art Fair and a call for artists. We will be hosting small pop ups in the neighbourhood, as well as larger exhibits. If it sounds like the kind of thing you’d like to be involved with, contact us.
Music
Music is a special medicine for the Soul.
SEEKING MUSICIANS TO BUSK send to amazingmosspark@gmail.com
Food
"If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart." -Cesar Chavez