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]

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

The Curator’s View: Oshawa Show and Shine

This post comes from Sonya Jones, Assistant Curator and Curator of The Thomas Bouckley Collection.

Every Wednesday evening during the summer months in Oshawa, the downtown hosts Show and Shine, where local car enthusiasts display their vehicles and gather to interact. In the past, it has been located at the Queen’s Market but this year it is in the civic parking lot just north of the RMG. The RMG is excited to be right next door and have changed our extended hours to Wednesday nights, instead of Thursdays, to welcome Show and Shine visitors to the gallery. To compliment this summer event, a Thomas Bouckley Collection exhibition on the automotive history of Oshawa is being featured in the E.P. Taylor Gallery.

Composite photo of Robert McLaughlin and his two sons, Robert Samuel and George W, both of who played significant role in bringing the carriage business into the automotive business. 1898

The Thomas Bouckley Collection contains a rich ensemble of photographs that tell the story of how the McLaughlin’s brought the auto industry to Oshawa. In 2008, my first year working at the gallery, the 100^th anniversary of the McLaughlin Motorcar Company, and the release of the McLaughlin-Buick was celebrated. One of my first projects was a commemorative exhibition to coincide with the release of a Canada Post stamp highlighting Col. Sam McLaughlin’s contributions to the auto industry, for which the Thomas Bouckley Collection contributed images.

McLaughlin Carriage Co. and Motorcar Co. employees at the Richmond and Mary Street plant, 1908

With the state of the auto industry today, it is important to once again look back on the history and relevance of the industry to this community. The struggles and uncertainty of Oshawa’s General Motors of Canada was outlined in a Globe and Mail article this weekend, GM Canada’s Foggy Road Ahead. As much as we are reminded about the importance of the industry to the community’s current economy, historically, the industry played a key role to the growth and success of Oshawa. Like the commemorative stamp, the photographs in this summer’s exhibition, Oshawa’s Automotive History, remind us of Col. Sam McLaughlin’s contributions to the auto industry and his endless generosity to Oshawa.

McLaughlin-Buick down at the lake, c. 1915

On view until the end of August, this exhibition celebrates Oshawa’s long connection to the auto industry and the people who made it happen.

The Curator’s View: Oshawa Then and Now

This post comes from Sonya Jones, Curator of The Thomas Bouckley Collection.

Recently the Toronto Star published an article called “Oshawa: the GTA’s final frontier for development”, which details how and why Oshawa has grown and changed so much in the last ten years. The change in economy from reliance on the auto industry to becoming a knowledge economy, through four universities, as well as Durham College, is credited as being the reason why more and more developers are seeing Oshawa’s potential. Exploring how much Oshawa has changed since it was first founded has always been a priority of the Thomas Bouckley Collection. Starting with Bouckley’s vision for documenting his changing city, to continuing that tradition through Then and Now projects, the collection visually tells Oshawa’s story. In continuation of the Then and Now series, the RMG has once again partnered with the Oshawa Senior Citizens’ Camera Club to show the area of Oshawa that perhaps has seen the most changes: the downtown.

: Looking north up Simcoe Street at Four Corners, c. 1920

: Simcoe St. at King St. looking North by Edward Warner

: Looking north up Simcoe Street at Athol Street, 1944

: Simcoe St. looking north from Athol St. by Graeme George

: King St. E. just West of Celina looking North West by Denis Lalonde

: Looking west on King St. E. at Celina Street, 1910

: Looking south down Simcoe Street at Four Corners, 1908

: Simcoe St. S. looking south from Four Corners by Alan Dionne

: Looking east on King St. W. at Prince Street, 1910

: King Street West looking East from Prince St.- by Graeme George

From its humble beginnings as a small settlement community to that of a large metropolitan city, Oshawa grew out of the intersection of King and Simcoe Streets known as the “Four Corners,” expanding and growing on all sides.

Similar to the Then and Now: Oshawa Creek project, members of the Oshawa Senior Citizens’ Camera Club used historical images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection as a starting point, and photographed the Four Corners as it appears today. This exhibition of side-by-side historical and contemporary photographs is also accompanied by a short video created by the club on the subject. On view until August 29, this exhibition celebrates our changing city!

Details about this exhibition on our website: click here.

Hot Topics: One Weekend in June

Hot Topics come from the desk of Jacquie Severs, the RMG’s Manager, Communications & Social Media

Oshawa’s Downtown revitalization project is an ongoing venture, one that has some starts and stops (as do most worthwhile projects) but it is exciting to watch. In the past three years I’ve worked at the RMG, I’ve seen dramatic change. In this post, I thought I’d share a to-do list for events this coming weekend in the downtown area, all free to attend, all artsy, and all incredible opportunities to participate in the transition of this community.

FRIDAY 7 JUNE

Core21 Oshawa

Friday evening from 5:30-7pm, drop into CORE21. This new co-working space is the result of many years of discussions around arts incubators and collaborative work spaces, with participation from many community stakeholders and the City of Oshawa economic developers. After an extensive renovation to the former Honest Way department store, CORE21 is opening its doors for guided tours to the facility on Friday. While there you can enter to win a 25 Hour, One Month Co-working Membership.

Check out the facebook event for CORE21.
Visit CORE21 online.

The Coachlites

The draw for the CORE21 membership will happen at RMG Fridays, our monthly event held here at the RMG from 7-10pm. This event is themed “Welcome Summer”. It will feature live musical performances by Tim Watson and The Coachlites. I realized just today that The Coachlites are named after the Coachlite Roller Gardens, a roller skating rink downtown Oshawa. Have a listen to their debut performance this week and decide for yourself if the name fits! This event also celebrates the opening of two new art exhibitions, we’ll have interactive augmented reality posters from the War of 1812 Oshawa Project, and we’ll be talking about our Vintage Oshawa: Summer in the City project as well. It will be a busy and diverse night with an incredibly fun crowd. Remember, there’s a cash bar!

Check out the facebook event for RMG Fridays.
Check out the webpage for RMG Fridays.

After RMG Fridays, if you’re interested in seeing more art happening in the community, visit Wasted Space. It is a new art cafe and lounge located just a short walk from the RMG at 74 Celina Street. This comfortable venue is decorated with art by local artists, a plethora of lava lamps, and comfortable sofas. Chantelle Lacoursiere is showing her artwork there on Friday, and they’ll have live music, a DJ, and finger foods to keep your energy up. This is a licensed venue.

Check out the facebook event for this opening.
Become a fan of Wasted Space on facebook.

SATURDAY 8 JUNE

Saturday is the start of the Oshawa Valley Botanical Garden’s Annual Peony Festival! I’ve been told the peonies are perfectly timed this year and will be spectacular on the weekend. With over 300 varieties to view, this is the 9th Annual event, and it runs 10am to 4pm both Saturday and Sunday at 155 Arena Street. This festival was voted one of Ontario’s Top 100 Festivals and Events!

Learn more about the Oshawa Peony Festival.
There is also a Bomb Girls Garden Party at Parkwood Estate as part of the festival!

Sneak peek of Foreclosure at The Vault. Photo by Will McGuirk.

After a stroll in the gardens, stop by a new collaborative art space downtown Oshawa called The Vault. Located on the site of a former bank, the space became available to the Oshawa arts community when landlord Zal Press contacted City Hall to inform them he wanted to open the space to local artists. Opening at 1pm on Saturday, Transition Saturday will have a featured exhibition titled Foreclosure by Mike Berube, a photojournalist. Other artists participating in the show are Jay Dart, Dani Crosby, Grant Cole, Tammy Gay, Shannon Sosoon, Brian Vince, Steven Brown, Erica Podlowski, and Janice McHaffie. The event is at 19 Simcoe Street North and is a fundraiser for Feed The Need. Non-perishable food items will also be collected at the door.

SUNDAY 9 JUNE

Sunday the RMG hosts OPG Second Sundays. This is a monthly event for families of all kinds and sizes. Drop into the gallery from 1-3pm, explore our exhibitions, and try a hands-on art making activity! This month, inspired by the exhibition Falling in Place and the Oshawa Peony Festival guests can build their own cities and imaginary worlds in full bloom while making big beautiful paper peonies. This monthly series is generously sponsored by Ontario Power Generation.

Learn more about upcoming OPG Second Sundays.
Sunday will be a busy day downtown Oshawa as the Peony Festival continues.
Parkwood Estate’s Bomb Girls Garden Party continues to rage throughout the weekend!

Pride Durham is a non-profit organization that hosts Pride and social events in Durham Region. Sunday 9 of June is the final event in Pride Week, which includes the 3rd Annual Durham Pride Parade. The parade travels through the downtown area travelling on Centre Street starting at 2:30pm.

Get more details about this year’s Pride festivities at the website.
Become a fan of Pride Durham on facebook.

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

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