National Volunteer Week

It’s National Volunteer Week! #NVW2015

All of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery programs rely heavily on our volunteer program. We at the RMG value the importance of volunteerism and make it a priority to ensure all volunteers have an enriching and satisfying experience as they help to fulfill the needs of the gallery.

We thought it would be fun to share some of the reasons we LOVE our volunteers!

“The enthusiasm of our volunteers reminds me why this is a great place to work.” – Linda Jansma, Senior Curator

“Volunteers bring new ideas and a refreshing energy to everything that they do, I find it very inspiring!” – Megan White, Assistant Curator

“In my time at the RMG I feel I’ve learned just as much from our volunteers as they’ve learned from me.” Norah O’Donnell, Manager of Community and Volunteer Development, Manager of Community and Volunteer

“I love how eager our volunteers are to learn new skills and share their ideas.” – Sam Mogelosnsky, Communications Co-ordinator

“I love volunteering at @theRMG. I’ve learned so much from the passionate people that work here.” – Heather Bulman, Communications Intern

We are so grateful for our volunteers. Without them, we just wouldn’t be as awesome! Interested in volunteering, click here to get involved at the RMG!

Happy volunteering!

PS… Hey, did you hear? On 14 May, the RMG will be hosting a Volunteer Youth Leaders Symposium. Are you interested in exploring youth volunteerism in your organization? Register here.

Image by Ryan Cleary for snapd Oshawa from RMG Fridays March

RMG Fridays April: Emerging Superstars

We encourage you to Bring-a-Friend to our RMG Fridays April event on April 10 from 7-10m (*Note Special Date) to share in the fun! The night features performances by highly-acclaimed pop singer/songwriter Scott Helman, the 2014 nominee for the CBC Music Rising Star award and smart-pop, love-rockers So Young from London. This event runs alongside the opening of Speak Up! Youth Art Exhibition.

For more information:
Speak Up: https://www.facebook.com/speakuposhawa
Scott Helman: http://www.scotthelmanmusic.com/home/
So Young: http://soyoung.bandcamp.com/

On the first Friday of the month, join the RMG in celebrating local talent. The gallery buzzes with live musical performances, interactive art experiences, open gallery spaces, social mingling and more. Suitable for music lovers, youth, families, date nights, and culture-vultures.

Free to attend | 7-10pm | Cash Bar | All ages welcome.

Follow the twitter feed at #RMGFridays!

The RMG is grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of this programming.

RMG Friday March: Evolving Form

Our March event on 6 March from 7-10pm will engage with your senses! Both Graham Nicholas and Ryan Carr are acoustic roots singer-songwriters who will take us on a musical journey.

We also celebrate Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form, the major retrospective of the abstract artist and Painters 11 member Jock Macdonald. Create an artwork using your senses, tour the collection and learn more about the symposium, Abstraction in Canada hosted by the RMG on Saturday 7 March.

For more information:
Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form – https://rmg.on.ca/jock-macdonald-evolving-form.php
Ryan Carr- http://www.reverbnation.com/ryancarr
Graham Nicholas – https://www.facebook.com/grahamnicholasmusic

Free to attend | 7-10pm | Cash Bar | All ages welcome.

Follow the twitter feed at #RMGFridays!

The RMG is grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of RMG Fridays.

Image credits:
Left: Graham Nicholas. Photo by Laura Proctor Photography
Middle: Jock Macdonald, Rim of the Sky, 1958; oil on canvas; Collection of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Right: Ryan Carr

RMG FRIDAYS… 4 Years Later

As we approach a milestone, Norah O’Donnell, the Manager of Community and Volunteer Development finds herself reflecting on the past 4 years of RMG Fridays programming. What a whirlwind experience! Our Communication Coordinator, Sam Mogelonsky asked her a few questions – here is the result.

Norah at the mic

Sam: For those who are not aware, what is RMG Fridays?

Norah: RMG Fridays is a free, community-focused series held at the RMG on the first Friday of each month. It is a fun night where we meet as a community to take in 2 musical performances, exhibition openings, community collaborations, a cash bar and interactive art projects! We are very grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for supporting this program.

Sam: You mentioned community collaborations. Who has partnered with RMG Fridays?

Norah: The partnerships that have developed through the program are vast and varied. They continue to diversify programming and our audience base. Over the past 4 years, we have collaborated with Durham College, Trent University, UOIT, Spark Centre for Innovation, City of Oshawa, Oshawa Public Library, Rotary Club of Oshawa, AIDS Committee of Durham, Girls Inc., Core 21, Durham Tourism, Oshawa Community Museum, Empty Cup Media, Cinefest Durham, Pride Durham, Oshawa Space Invaders, Broken Arts and Next Winter Festival.

Sam: How many participants have been involved?

Norah: I have made many friends at RMG Fridays! I love seeing new and familiar faces each month. Since 2011, our staff and volunteers have welcomed over 8400 guests!

RMG Fridays July 4, 2014. Photo by Licianny Matos

Sam: Could you talk a bit about the planning process of RMG Fridays?

Norah: RMG Fridays is a collaborative effort amongst staff. We plan 4 months at a time to coincide with our newsletter production. The project scope has increased over the years to now include Nutshell Tours, exhibition openings and more. We have a great team of RMG Fridays volunteers who help run the event each month. A special thanks to all those who are currently involved and those who have helped over the past 4 years. We could not do it without their support. In addition, each month I am grateful to Nate and Jacob at JMS Audio for making us sound so specular!

Sam: What has been your favourite RMG Fridays moment?

Norah: It is almost impossible for me to choose just one. I would say my top 5 in no particular order has been:

Forest City Lovers performing to a record number of attendees
Launching the Gig Poster Show with the Marvelous Beauhunks and Viva Mars
Celebrating the eve of International Women’s Day with Girls Inc. Durham, the barbershop quartet Surround Sound, Jenny Berkel, and Heather Luckhart and her Colbalt Babies.
Dave Stathem swinging us into the holidays!
The GeekFreaks breakdancing in the Isabel McLauglin Gallery

Sam: Who would be your dream band to perform at RMG Fridays?

Norah: Uptown Funk is currently stuck in my head on repeat. Bruno Mars is my current pick!

Curator’s View – Jock Macdonald

This blog post comes from the desk of Senior Curator, Linda Jansma.

It has been an exciting journey to be involved in the development of Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form. As the “spiritual home” of Painters Eleven, it was natural for the RMG to be part of this collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery and Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Many of the 26 works by Macdonald in the RMG’s permanent collection are featured in both the exhibition and publication, as are other paintings from major public holdings across the country, as well as from private collections.

The exhibition presents important new research: a previously unknown diary that Macdonald kept while he and his family lived in Nootka, a remote community on Vancouver Island, correspondence from Jock to British Surrealists Dr. Grace Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff, and a selection of 86 previously unknown works housed in the archives of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. The latter represents a link between Macdonald’s early forays into abstraction, and his fully realized automatic works and a number are included in the exhibition.

This wonderful photograph of Macdonald, taken at the opening of a Jack Bush exhibition in 1958 at Toronto’s Park Gallery, is also a recent discovery and a 2014 addition to the RMG’s important P11 archives. We are grateful to the Feheley family for their generous gift of this material.

Image – Jock Macdonald, 1958 Park Gallery Opening, Gift of the Feheley Family, 2014

Closeups: Margaret Rodgers

Selections from the Thomas Bouckley Collection

23 January – 7 May, 2015
Opening: RMG Fridays, 6 February, 7-10pm
Artist talk with Margaret Rodgers: Sunday 22 February, 1-3pm

Local artist Margaret Rodgers has created a new body of work as an extension of her ongoing interest in Oshawa’s heritage. Using photographs from the Thomas Bouckley Collection as a jumping off point, Rodgers has created a series of mixed media works that ask the viewer to take a closer look at scenes from Oshawa’s history.

Rodgers places a spotlight on captured moments of figures that are otherwise easily overlooked in these photographs. The act of featuring these people in her work is a subversion of the original intent of the photographer, but allows the viewer to look at the image in a new way. Rodgers deals with incidental images, often grainy or blurry, but those that are suggestive of daily life at the time. Most of the mixed media work centers on bystanders from various historical Oshawa events, calling up the manner in which we all become background strangers captured in other people’s photographs at one time or another. The works featured in Closeups are displayed using recovered jewelry trays from the basement at 20 Simcoe Street North, a building formerly owned by Burns Jewellers and further referencing Oshawa’s past.

Margaret Rodgers is an Oshawa-based artist who has exhibited internationally and locally for many years. She founded the IRIS Group, a women artists’ collective, in 1996, taught art subjects at Centennial and Durham Colleges, and spearheaded many projects as Director/Curator at VAC Clarington.

Curated by Megan White.

For more information, please visit www.margaretrodgers.ca

Image – Margaret Rodgers, Fireman and Fan, Prospect Park 1900, 2014

Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form – Special Programs

This winter we’re offering an in-depth learning series about the artist and educator Jock Macdonald.

Over 60 years ago, Alexandra Luke organized The Canadian Abstract Exhibition for the YWCA in Oshawa, giving birth to abstraction in Ontario and a collective of artists who would go on to call themselves Painters Eleven. Jock Macdonald, a member of this illustrious group, is regarded as an early visionary, leading the way in automatic and abstract painting in Canada.

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is thrilled to present Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form, the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in over thirty years and the only venue to host the exhibition, east of British Columbia. The exhibition provides a fresh look at Macdonald’s artistic practice and includes for the first time, previously unknown Automatics, discovered in the archives of The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art by the RMG’s Senior Curator Linda Jansma.

Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form
3 February, 2015 – 24 May, 2015

Opening Reception
RMG Fridays, 6 March 2015, 7-9pm

Talk and Tour with Pete Smith and Linda Jansma, Curator of Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form
Sunday 1 February, 1-3pm

ArtLab artist in residence Pete Smith will discuss his relationship to abstraction and the development of his recent ArtLab installation. Senior Curator, Linda Jansma will share the story of her discovery of the previously unknown Macdonald works, followed by a guided tour of Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form.

Symposium
Abstraction in Canada: The Legacy of Jock Macdonald
Saturday 7 March 2015, 10am-4pm

Lunch and refreshments included. Registration required $20 / $15 students
Free for RMG Members.

This one-day symposium will explore the life and work of Canadian painter Jock Macdonald, including postwar abstraction in Canada and Macdonald’s influence on the last century of Canadian art. This event is held in conjunction with Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form —the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in over thirty years. The day will include an in-depth tour of the exhibition, a light lunch and refreshments and presentations from art historians, researchers, students and curators.

Call for proposals

The RMG invites diverse session proposals that contribute to our understanding of postwar abstraction in Canada, including the work of Jock Macdonald and Painters Eleven.

Session proposals may cover history, theory and criticism, museum and curatorial practice, contemporary work, and artistic practice. Please submit your CV and a 300 word abstract to Elizabeth Sweeney at [email protected] by January 15, 2015.

Website

In conjunction with Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form the RMG is proud to launch www.jockmacdonald.org – a special exhibition website detailing the artist’s life with an extended timeline, live drawing tool and interactive gallery of artworks. This is the first time the artist’s work has been available online in an interactive, web-based format.

Catalogue

Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form is accompanied by a major book co-published by The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and Black Dog Publishing, featuring texts by each curator, an essay by scholar Dr. Anna Hudson, excerpts from Macdonald’s correspondence and a diary the artist kept while living in Nootka Sound from 1935 to 1936. Available at the RMG shop.

School Enrichment Programs
February 2015 – May 2015
Grades JK-12

This comprehensive school enrichment program includes an interactive tour of Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form, proving an easy and engaging introduction to the world of abstraction. Students will also visit the studio and experiment with watercolour and ink to create an abstract artwork inspired by the exhibition. Visit the Teachers Corner on our website to learn more.

OPG Second Sundays!
12 April: Amazing Abstractions We are letting our imaginations loose! Inspired by the Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form exhibition, we create watercolour paintings, unique abstracted pinwheels, silly sculptures and a collaborative abstract floor art. Free.

Top image: Jock Macdonald, Untitled, 1954 (Detail), Collection of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form

3 February – 24 May, 2015
Talk and Tour: Sunday, 1 February, 1-3pm
Opening: RMG Fridays, 6 March, 7-10pm

Symposium:
Abstraction in Canada: The Legacy of Jock Macdonald
Saturday 7 March 2015, 10am – 4pm

Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form is a travelling exhibition, organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery and celebrating the artist’s life and exhibiting many previously unknown works. The exhibition begins with Macdonald’s early painting career in Vancouver, surveys his move toward abstraction and his extraordinary automatics, and concludes with the later abstractions he produced as part of the Toronto-based collective of abstract artists, the Painters Eleven.

A pioneer of postwar abstraction in Canada, Jock Macdonald was a key figure and influenced not only his peers, but also future generations of Canadian painters. The exhibition traces the artist’s practice and shows the dramatic transformations he underwent throughout his development. Influenced by spirituality and Surrealist thinking, Macdonald believed that the artist’s task was to “break out of the tangible reality of daily existence to realize the highest planes of art expression”. (Pg 15, Thom, The Early Work: An Artist Emerges) His career was an artistic journey in a perpetual state of evolution and growth. As a founding member of Painters Eleven, Macdonald’s contribution to abstract painting in Canada is seminal.

Evolving Form is the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in over thirty years and is a fresh look at the influential artist’s career.

A special project website detailing the artist’s life with an interactive timeline, drawing tool and gallery of artworks accompanies the exhibition. Click here to launch jockmacdonald.org

This project is accompanied by a major book co-published by the three art galleries and Black Dog Publishing, featuring texts by each curator, an essay by scholar Dr. Anna Hudson, excerpts from Macdonald’s correspondence and a diary the artist kept while living in Nootka Sound from 1935 to 1936.

The exhibition is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and is curated by Ian M. Thom, Michelle Jacques and Linda Jansma.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Government of Canada through the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Image: Jock Macdonald, Nature’s Pattern, 1954; Collection of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

Running on Empty

Running on Empty:

Kim Adams, John Massey, Kate Puxley, Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver, Monica Tap, Elinor Whidden, and Jean-Luc Godard

January 10 – April 26, 2015
Opening: RMG Fridays, 9 January, 7-10pm
Catalogue Launch: Sunday 1 February, 1-3:30pm
Exhibition Tour: Sunday 29 March, 1-3pm

Throughout most of Canada’s history, the navigation of the landscape by foot, wagon, or canoe, whether for the sake of discovery, trade, or pleasure, proceeded at much slower speeds than it does now. Paved roads have replaced the trails of those earlier days, although they cross the same hills, marshes, and forests, and their routes follow the same rivers and valleys. Today, our encounters with vistas and wildlife often occur from within the metal and glass armour of an automobile while travelling at 100 kilometres per hour.

In his Futurist Manifesto of 1909, the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti declared that man’s triumphs over nature would lead the way to a better future, and called for the overthrow of all that was old! Just a year earlier, Henry Ford’s Model T had hit the streets of America, signalling the dawn of the motor age when industrial proliferation would radically transform lives by providing access to new kinds of convenience and independence.

Our mass love affair with the car had hit full stride by the middle of the last century, and despite a few bumps and hurdles, it has remained intact to this day. Auto bodies and road trips have been evoked in countless images, narratives, and songs, from Hollywood movies to devoted sections of newspapers. However, over time this near-utopian relationship has come under intense scrutiny from a wide range of cultural and environmental perspectives.

Running on Empty presents the work of artists who consider the seductions, and also disillusionments, in our longstanding infatuation with the car and highway. They situate the car as a mediating force in our relationship with mobility and the land, and explore the interconnection of industry and the natural world. In these delightful and challenging works of art expeditions have unexpected consequences, bucolic scenes become a blur, idyllic scenarios are mere fabrications, and history repeats itself.

– Heather Nicol, exhibition curator

Running on Empty is curated by artist Heather Nicol. A full color, 48 page catalogue with an essay by Heather Nicol will accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition is open to the public from 10 January – 26 April, 2015. Please join us for the opening at RMG Fridays on 9 January 2015 from 7-10pm.

The RMG thanks the City of Oshawa, The Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of this exhibition and programming.

Image – Monica Tap, One-second Hudson no. 4, 2007

Introducing Gallery A

Introducing Gallery A – Fulfilling the Legacy of Aleen Aked and paving the way for collaboration, local artistic exposure and the growth of our vibrant arts community. Please join us for the Grand Opening at RMG Fridays on 9 January.

Elizabeth Aleen Aked was an accomplished artist and a woman with a strong sense of the history and culture of the places she lived, especially her summer home and studio in Tyrone, Ontario. Miss Aked died in 2003; in her estate, a generous portion of her legacy was gifted to The Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

With the support of the Aked Endowment and funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, the RMG is thrilled to embark on an exciting new initiative aimed at fostering a thriving local arts community.

During the summer of 2014, the RMG was under major renovations to create a professional exhibition space reserved for exhibiting the work of local artists, community collaborations, and themed group exhibits. The new space, features a professional gallery, an artist studio and rooms designed for bringing together arts communities.

Opportunities are available for community partnerships and special initiatives as well as artist residencies that prioritizes artists who wish to experiment with new ideas, collaborate, and work in new directions. Artists will have increased opportunities to give public talks, participate in professional development workshops, and give and receive critical feedback from peers. Programming of this space is separate from our curatorial planning and proposal selections are made with a jury of local artists and arts professionals.

We invite you to visit the new space, take a workshop or apply for an opportunity at Gallery A.

Get Involved!

Grand Opening:

RMG Fridays on Friday 9 January, 7 pm

Information Session:

Thursday 26 February, 7 – 8 pm

Application Deadline:

Sunday 15 March. Projects will take place from September 2015 to February 2016. Application form found at www.rmg.on.ca

On View

1 December, 2014 – 1 February 2015
Gallery A & Art Lab: Pete Smith, artist residency

4 February – 1 March, 2015
Gallery A: Ruth Greenlaw
Art Lab: Toni Hamel, artist residency

3 March -29 March, 2015
Gallery A & Art Lab: Toni Hamel, artist residency

31 March– 12 April, 2015
Gallery A: Speak Up! Youth Art Exhibition

14 April – 28 April, 2015
Gallery A: Durham College Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Exhibition

Events

Sunday 1 February, 1 – 3pm
Talk and Tour with Artist, Pete Smith and Senior Curator, Linda Jansma

RMG Fridays: 6 February, 7-10pm
Opening reception: Ruth Greenlaw

Sunday 22 February, 1-3pm
Talk and Tour with artists Ruth Greenlaw and Margaret Rodgers

Sunday 29 March, 1 – 3pm
Talk and Tour with Artist Toni Hamel and Running on Empty Curator Heather Nicol

Sunday 19 April, 1 – 3pm
Opening Reception: Durham College Fine Arts Graduate Thesis Exhibition

Workshops for Artists

Saturday 10 January, 1 – 3pm
Drawing Workshop with Ron Shuebrook

Ron Shuebrook will lead a workshop about the use of memories as a catalyst for art, while also considering aesthetic forms and expressive processes. Participants will explore a variety of graphic media such as graphite, charcoal, or ink, based on their interests. All materials provided but students are welcome to bring their own tools and materials if they prefer.

Registration required. $25 Members/ $35 Non-Members / Free for adults registered in Winter/Spring 2015 art classes

Sunday 15 February, 1 – 3pm
Grant Writing and Funding Opportunities for Artists

Zhe Gu, Visual Arts Officer at the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) will lead this workshop aimed at professional Visual artists and Fine Craft artists. The workshop will cover the types of grants available, the selection process and how to prepare an effective application. Please bring any applications in progress, your artist statement, or previous grant text.

Free. Registration required.

Thursday 30 April – Saturday 2 May
By appointment during Gallery hours
Artwork Documentation Station

Over the course of three days, artists may document their artwork in an environment designed for effective, professional documentation. RMG staff will be on hand with the appropriate lighting, hanging and photographic equipment. Artists may bring their own camera, or alternately a 10GB USB memory stick to transfer images onto. Maximum of five artworks, no larger than 7ft x 7ft. Wall-mounted works only.

Free. Registration required.

Symposium
Sunday 7 March, 10am – 4pm

Abstraction in Canada: The Legacy of Jock Macdonald

Lunch and refreshments included.

$20 / $15 students / Free for RMG Members