McLaughlin Day in Oshawa

This blog post is from Joan Murray, Director Emeritus.

Billiard Room. Image courtesy Parkwood Estate, copyright the Challener estate.

Frederick Sproston Challener’s inspired mural paintings in Parkwood Estate, commissioned in 1924, are particularly well done. Located in the billiards room and hallway, the murals have a strangely perfect, yet ineffably wry quality which combines romanticism and history. His narrative includes the five daughters of Colonel Sam McLaughlin, including the patron of the Gallery, Miss Isabel McLaughlin, outdoor sports events engaged in by Mr. McLaughlin and his family, and a vision of arcadia with wholesome-looking young children, McLaughlin’s grandchildren. The entire effect is joyous, with just the right mixture of Twentieth-century details to balance the artifice before us with its woodland setting of birch trees and panel of Pan playing his pipe.

Enchanted Wood. Image courtesy Parkwood Estate, copyright the Challener estate.

Challener was an artist who returned from a trip to Europe in 1898-99 with a passionate desire—to make murals. Fortunately for him, his wish fell in with a period of expansion in the theatre and architectural scene in Canada and he soon found himself hard at work executing murals in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, London, and Winnipeg. At the same time as his architectural commissions, he painted many easel paintings.

In celebration of McLaughlin Day, we honour here not only Colonel Sam McLaughlin and his wife Adelaide, but Miss Isabel McLaughlin, who was always deeply interested in mural painting, as well as the McLaughlin family, our friends.

Visit Parkwood Estate on McLaughlin Day on the August long weekend, for their wonderful Basement Tours. The tours are held August 3, 4, & 5, do not require pre-booking and will be available from 10:30 to 5:00pm. Admission is $10.00 per person, regardless of age. ($11.30 with the HST)

Visit Parkwood Estate online.

Oshawa embarks on its first Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan

Today we received a Media Release from the City of Oshawa. It’s a project that we are proud to be part of. The release mentions opportunities to participate, and if you continue to visit this blog you’ll learn more about your opportunities here at the RMG in the coming months. Read the full details below.

Media Release
The Corporation of the City of Oshawa
For Immediate Release, July 26, 2013
Oshawa embarks on its first Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan
Community forums and surveys to begin this fall

OSHAWA – The City of Oshawa is embarking on the development of its first Arts,Culture and Heritage Plan aimed at guiding cultural development in the community over the next five to ten years.
A project team of City staff along with a steering committee comprised of members of the cultural community, City staff and a representative from City Council will collectively oversee the development of the Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan.

“To continue to encourage a thriving Oshawa economy, we need put a spotlight on our strong arts, culture and heritage communities. These people represent the rich cultural life which is essential to attracting high-paying jobs and investment in the new creative economy,” said Councillor Amy England, Council representative on the Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan Steering Committee.

The purpose of the Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan is to establish a longer-term vision and set of strategies and actions to guide cultural development in the Oshawa community. The Plan will support the City of Oshawa’s strategic plan, Creating our Sustainable Tomorrow, with a focus on economic prosperity, social equity, cultural vitality, environmental responsibility and accountable leadership.

A series of community engagement activities will gather community and stakeholder input into the development of the vision and the direction of the Plan. Community forums and surveys will begin in fall 2013.
“While the Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan Steering Committee has been working on the development of a vision and appropriate strategies, community and stakeholder input is critical to ensure the Plan will meet Oshawa’s needs,” said Councillor Bob Chapman, Chair of Community Services Committee. “I encourage maximum participation in our forums and surveys.”

The City has engaged the consulting firm AuthentiCity (a division of Millier Dickinson Blais) to support the City in developing the plan and to work collaboratively with Public Interest on upcoming community engagement activities. The City of Oshawa has received financial support from the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s Creative Communities Prosperity Fund toward the development of the Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan. The project will conclude by March 2014.

For more information and updates, visit www.oshawaculturalplan.ca.
– 30 –
Media Contacts:
Councillor Amy England
Council representative, Arts, Culture and Heritage Plan Steering Committee
905-436-5614; [email protected]
Councillor Bob Chapman
Chair, Community Services Committee
905-436-5619; [email protected]
Jag Sharma
Commissioner, Community Services
905-436-3311 ext. 2259; [email protected]
Ron Diskey
Director, Recreation and Culture Services
905-436-3311 ext. 3880; [email protected]
Julie MacIsaac
Manager, Centralized Recreation Services, Recreation & Culture Services
905-436-5633; [email protected]

The Intern Files: Celebrating Canadian Artists through Wikipedia

This post for the Intern Files is written by Madison Cawker. Madison is an intern this summer with our communications team and is a Candidate for Diploma in Arts Management at the University of Western Ontario.

Painters Eleven are a powerful force in Canadian art history on both a local and national scale. In an era of predominantly landscape art, they helped raise the profile of abstraction and inspire the next generation of modernist artists.

Their influence has directly touched the RMG through our connection with Painters Eleven (P11) member Alexandra Luke. Her significant donations have, in part, given the gallery the largest Painters Eleven collection in Canada and the ability to continue inspiring our community through art.

Alexandra Luke (Canadian, 1901 – 1967)
Symphony 1957
oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. R. S. McLaughlin, 1972
This painting is very large – 246.7 x 208.3 cm or 97.126″ x 82.007874″

Painters Eleven are celebrated online through biographical websites, online collections and web encyclopedia entries. Upon examining popular resource Wikipedia, however, we noticed a gap in information. While P11 members such as Jack Bush, Jock McDonald and Kazuo Nakamura had in-depth articles written about them, the women of the group, Alexandra Luke and Hortense Gordon, did not have any published information available.

Inspired by the work of the Canadian Women Artists History Initiative and the Global Women Wikipedia Write-in (#GWWI), I sought to fix this information gap. I wanted to share the lives and works of these important Canadian women artists not only because of their impact on the RMG but also because of their important contributions to the development and reception of abstract art in Canada.

Using a variety of references from our Joan Murray Artists’ Files and the RMG research library, I researched Alexandra and Hortense then put together two Wikipedia articles that reflect the vitality and impact of their arts careers. It was a time consuming process but it was ultimately very interesting work. I also got to learn some fun facts about the women. For example, did you know Hortense Gordon had an intense sibling rivalry with her artist sister Marion?

As of early July, both articles have been published and are available to read on Wikipedia.

Read about Alexandra Luke on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Luke

Read about Hortense Gordon on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortense_Gordon

Window Wednesday March 30, 2011 Isabel McLaughlin (Canadian, 1903-2002) Above the Rooftops n.d. oil on canvas Gift of the estate of Isabel McLaughlin, 2003

Isabel McLaughlin (Canadian, 1903-2002)
Above the Rooftops n.d.
oil on canvas
Gift of the estate of Isabel McLaughlin, 2003

I believe that it is important for women to be included in the narrative of Canadian art history. I have now gone on to create and edit several more articles on Wikipedia including entries for Joan Murray (art historian and former director of the RMG), Isabel McLaughlin, and the Canadian Group of Painters. I feel proud to have helped support Canadian art history in a small way.

Hot Topics: Community Curates II

Hot Topics comes from the desk of Jacquie Severs, Manager, Communications & Social Media

At the RMG our statement of purpose indicates we are dedicated to sharing, exploring and engaging with our communities through the continuing story of modern and contemporary Canadian art. There are many ways in which we do this, but from my office, a large part of the sharing, exploring, and engagement I work on is digital and social.

I recently worked with Assistant Curator Sonya Jones on developing our second Community Curates project. Last time, we developed a weekly survey through our blog, and voting determined the outcome of an exhibition. We felt that approach was successful but getting people to come back and vote every week for ten weeks wasn’t the easiest task. When managing a social community it isn’t advisable to drown people in repetitive requests week after week! So this time, we decided to make the voting a one-time survey that we could host on our website.

We’re a few weeks into promoting the survey through social media and gathering responses. I love looking over some of the data that is collected. We’ve had responses from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. That means we’ve engaged international audiences in our Canadian art collection, and I think that’s a very important part of what makes social media so powerful for museums and galleries. Going back to the original intent, engaging with our communities, it is important to recognize that for art museums our communities is defined not just as our local community of Oshawa, the Durham Region, the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario and beyond, it is also the larger international community of people interested in art.

Social media has changed how museums and galleries can communicate and share art with fans and friends around the world. And we want to hear from you!

Have your say in the Community Curates II survey, and help select the works for an exhibition at the RMG.

Community Curates II

Vintage Oshawa: Summer in the City

This blog post comes from the desk of Sonya Jones, our Assistant Curator and Curator of the Thomas Bouckley Collection.

Spring has sprung and summer is almost here! In the winter, it can be easy to go into hibernation, whereas the summer is a time to get outside for adventures and build memories. The days are longer and the weather warmer, allowing you to spend as much time as possible outside. For me it represents gardening, patios, hiking, and most importantly, vacation. Some of the best summer vacations can be “stay-cations,” where you spend your holiday at home taking full advantage of your backyard and seeing what your city/town has to offer. The Thomas Bouckley Collection contains many images showing summer’s past in Oshawa, including historical residents cooling off in the lake, relaxing, playing outdoor games, and generally basking in the sun. The images celebrate summers experienced in Oshawa and capture the spirit of the season.

Oshawa-on-the-Lake, 1915

With this in mind, we have launched our Vintage Oshawa: Summer in the City project. Each week summer images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection will be posted to our tumblr page (click here) so be sure to bookmark it!

Not only do we want to feature images from the collection in this online exhibition, but we also want to represent the city, past and present, by having the community post their own images of Oshawa in the summer. This could be anything from recent family barbecues in the backyard to swimming lessons at Rotary Park. How do you like to spend the summer in Oshawa? What are some of your favourite hot spots?

Sonya in the Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens

One place I visit on my lunch breaks in the summer is the beautiful Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens.

It’s easy to submit your photos or videos to this online exhibition. Be sure to include information about the images, such as a story, where it was taken, and the approximate date. Let’s celebrate summer and revel in memories built in Oshawa.

Help us create a visual history of summers in the city!

Click to visit www.vintageoshawa.tumblr.com

The Curator’s View: International Museum Day

The Curator’s View comes from the desk of Linda Jansma, Senior Curator at the RMG.

This Saturday, 18 May marks the 34^th International Museum Day. The entire month is actually set aside as one in which we can celebrate our collective histories by sharing our heritages, cultures, ambitions and dreams through what’s being offered in museums, art galleries, heritage sites etc. throughout the world. This year, the RMG is one of over 30,000 museums in over 100 countries on five continents that will mark a day in which we examine our place within our community and how we can affect change through our exhibitions, programs, workshops, art classes, and concerts.

2013’s theme, which is set by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) is

Museums (Memory + Creativity) = Social Change

ICOM states:

This truly optimistic theme in the form of an equation dynamically gathers several concepts that are essential to define what a museum is today, highlighting the universal nature of those institutions and their positive influence on society.

Currently, we have Richard Harrington: Arctic Photographer installed in our Alexandra Luke I Gallery space. Large-scale black and white photographs of Inuit from the 1950’s showing beautiful, yet, at times, disturbing images. Interestingly, these arresting photographs affected change once viewed in the south. Government assistance was initiated to help relieve some of the suffering that people in the North were experiencing at that time. Harrington, through his creativity, affected social change. The accompanying sculpture by Charlie Sivuarapik provides both critical context and dialogue between a non-Inuit photographer and an Inuit carver who mediates, on a much more personal level, his experience of the North.

Oshawa Art Association Opening

In other spaces we share riches from our permanent collection, a collection that is held in trust for future generations. And in yet another gallery, we are hosting the annual juried exhibition of the Oshawa Art Association. 250 people crowded into the gallery on the opening evening to celebrate the talent found within our own community. And, of course, that’s not all—our Imagination Station, CONTACT photography festival contribution with the work of Tom Ridout, and collaboration with local seniors to produce an exhibition showing the intersection of our past and present that points towards our future.

Tour Group

As the Senior Curator of the RMG, I feel honoured to be part of a team that is passionate about sharing both Memories and Creativity through art, music, lectures, workshops, art classes, and more.

I hope you can join thousands who will walk into one of those 30,000 museums and galleries on Saturday. There is so much to celebrate!

2013 Juried Gig Poster Show Winners

Our 2013 Juried Gig Poster show is now on in the E.P. Taylor Gallery!

Thank you to all who entered, supported, and participated in the Juried Gig Poster show. We had an overwhelming number of excellent entries and an incredible level of talent represented this year. We’re already excited for next year’s event, when we plan to add a People’s Choice prize!

Come in to see all of the finalists, the show closes Sunday 19 May.

Our winners, as voted by the jury (highlighted below):

Best in Show: The School of M.A.D Prize: Glenn Brody Retirement by Dani Crosby

Glenn Brody Retirement by Dani Crosby

2nd Overall: The Moustache Club Prize: Gentlemen Husbands by Wes Pratt

Gentlemen Husbands by Wes Pratt

3rd Overall: The Citrus Media Prize: No Joy by Jess Keefer

No Joy by Jess Keefer

We’d like to take a moment to thank our jury!

Luke Despatie: Despite being named one of the top ten young designers to watch by Design Edge Magazine, Luke has more than a decade of experience creating award-winning design for clients like Survivorman, The Northern Pikes, Random House, Harper Collins, PEN Canada, Yahoo! and Chatelaine, among others. A true design nerd, Luke is inspired by all things aesthetic – art, architecture, film, theatre, food, toys and comic books. Luke is owner of The Design Firm based in Port Hope and Toronto.

Vish Khanna: Vish Khanna is a Canadian musician, Radio Personality and Music Journalist. A resident of Guelph, Khanna was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and grew up in Cambridge, Ontario. Currently a Community Producer at CBC Music, Khanna has worn many hats. He has been a concert promoter in Guelph since 1997, an Assistant Editor at Exclaim! Magazine, and a radio co-host. He regularly contributes to Signal to Noise and Off the Shelf Magazines.

Dave Rosen: Dave Rosen is a cartoonist and illustrator with a lifelong passion for poster art. The former editorial cartoonist for Montreal alt weeklies Hour and The Mirror, Rosen’s art has appeared in newspapers and magazines across Canada, as well as many published collections, including four of his own books. He has also done time as a CBC broadcaster, standup comic and comedy writer. Now based in Alexandria, Ontario, he indulges his passion for graphic design as a seller of vintage paper through his online poster shop, Posteropolis.
The RMG Juried Gig Poster Show would like to thank its generous sponsors for their support.

Presenting Sponsor: The Moustache Club
Prize Sponsors:
School of M.A.D (Media, Art and Design) at Durham College
Citrus Media
Multitech Graphics
Staples
Murphy’s Pub (aka, The Hub)

Intern Files: Rachael

This post is by Rachael Dixon Lawrence, a grade 12 student at Father Leo J Austin Secondary School. Rachael is completing a co-op placement.

I chose to do my placement in the curatorial department at the RMG to further my knowledge and skills in art for my future career in animation. Fine art is very important to me because it is a way for people to express themselves in fun and interesting ways. I felt that working in a gallery would help me appreciate how everyone views artworks differently and to learn how art exhibitions are organized and displayed. Working at the RMG has really shown me how much time and effort is put into exhibition planning, and the importance of preserving artworks, photographs, and archival documents.

Before working at the RMG I did not know that Oshawa had such a large collection of artworks, and was not familiar with Painters Eleven or their importance to the gallery. I love how each Painters Eleven member’s style is very different, yet they clearly influenced each other. I have also learned about Oshawa’s history through working with the Thomas Bouckley Collection.

My favourite Painters Eleven artist is Kazuo Nakamura. I particular love this painting by Nakamura entitled Suspension.

One of my favorite jobs while working at the gallery was assisting with the placement and hanging of artworks for both the Durham Catholic District School Board and the Oshawa Art Association exhibitions. I also have enjoyed organizing hard copy photographs of artworks into files because I get to see a variety of artists and styles in the collection while doing it. I have catalogued books and historical photographs, taken inventory of books and exhibition pamphlets, researched exhibition history, made/hung labels, learned how the dewy decimal system works in the library, and hung artworks.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience at the RMG and look forward to continuing my studies in fine art and animation.

Summer Art Camp in Oshawa!

Ages 5-10
Summer Day Camp at the RMG in Oshawa

The RMG’s summer day camp program offers something for everyone! Inspired by special exhibitions and our permanent collection, each week of camp is full of fun activities in the gallery, hands-on projects in the studio, games, and lots of time to play. Activities are planned so that you can sign up for half or full days and there are pre- and post-camp options for busy families.

NEW! Pre- and post-camp care available.
https://rmg.on.ca/summer-art-camps.php

Archives Awareness Week 2013

The Durham Region Area Archives Group is hosting a show and tell night on Wednesday, 3 April from 6:00pm-8:00pm at the Pickering Public Library. Libraries and archives from Durham Region will display and discuss strange and interesting items from their collections to celebrate Archives Awareness Week 2013. The objects on display will include a note signed by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, magic lantern slides, Victorian era postmortem photography, a circus flea, Second World War shells from the DIL plant in Ajax, and a stunt book from a student at Ontario Ladies’ College.

Plane Crash at the Four Corners of Oshawa, 1918

The RMG’s Sonya Jones, Assistant Curator and Curator of The Thomas Bouckley Collection, and Barb Duff, Library Services Coordinator are preparing our contribution to the display. The RMG’s contribution will include various historical images of a famous plane crash at the Four Corners of Oshawa, Alexandra Luke’s and Aleen Aked’s painters boxes, Isabel McLaughlin’s Order of Canada and Order of Ontario and various other oddities from our archives!

Residents from Durham are invited to attend and bring with them interesting historical items from their personal collections. There will be a meet and greet following the presentations and refreshments will be provided.

The Durham Region Area Archives Group was formed in 2011 and is the newest chapter of the Archives Association of Ontario. Its members represent libraries, archives, and historical societies in Durham Region and surrounding areas.