Art (Tonight!) And A Big Month of Announcements

A sneak preview of Junk Food our installation at Gladstone Grow Op / sample of Everywhere Gardens project

Spring is finally here! Nature is coming out of hibernation, and we at the AFC are crawling out of our grant-writing dungeons and into the sunshine. It's been a VERY busy month and we have so much to catch you up on. Here's an update on what's happening with the collective, and what's to come: 

OTF Announces Funding for our Pilot Project!

We are proud to announce that the Ontario Trillium Foundation has granted us funding to support our satellite project the Everywhere Gardens. The Everywhere Gardens is a pilot project based on concepts developed for the Everything Roof, but to take place at several major urban agriculture sites across Toronto.

In collaboration with artists from SKETCH Working Arts, we'll be using salvaged and recycled materials to showcase the artistic possibilities that exist within garden spaces, to spark conversation about creative approaches to food growing and sustainability in our city, and growing fresh organic produce for and with Toronto's communities. These functional sculptures will also be used as educational tools for learning about vertical and organic gardening. We'll be posting a lot more information on this project over the next month, and you can see an example of one of these creations tonight at the Gladstone hotel; read on, friend!

Tonight | Gladstone Grow Op

The AFC is very excited to be participating in the inaugural year of Gladstone Grow Op, a "four-day event to celebrate innovative ideas and conceptual responses to landscape and place across a broad range of creative practices. Grow Op 2013 will facilitate a cross-disciplinary forum for landscape, garden design, art and place making within the vibrant setting of Toronto’s West Queen West neighbourhood".  

Our installation, Junk Food, is a collaboration between illustrator, artist and About Face art director, Lauren Pirie, multi-disciplinary artist and designer, Mahmood Popal, and About Face garden coordinator, Natalie Boustead. The piece is inspired by themes of urban food production, food security, sustainable design and Toronto heritage and identity. The "urban foodscape" was built using salvaged wood and home-made milk paint, and houses a variety of Toronto-grown heirloom vegetables and herbs. The exhibit opens tonight, with a reception from 6 - 11pm, and runs through Sunday April 28th.

Mahmood Popal, putting it all together

The team surveying progress

Late night drawing at HUNTCLUB photos by Darlene Huynh

Thanks for EVERYTHING! To all of our Amazing Supporters:

It has been a year since our Indiegogo campaign hit its goal, thanks to you, our incredibly supportive community of friends, family and believers in art; sustainability; good, local, accessible, nutritious food and the Everything Roof. Your support has allowed us to bring on the right people to help coordinate funding (the amazing Shawna Caspi), to draw up proper landscape and architectural designs (the amazing Phillip Collins), to plan exciting creative projects and fundraising events (the amazing Rodrigo Marti, Mahmood Popal and the whole amazing crew at SKETCH) and to get through another year of planning and grant-writing. It has now helped to launch our pilot project, the Everywhere Gardens!

While the Everything Roof may still be waiting for the moment, five stories high in the future, we are getting closer to it every day. But we didn't wait to wait to acknowledge our wonderful supporters, so we've made plans with Centre for Social Innovation to design and install dedicated planter sculptures on the soon-to-launch CSI Annex courtyard patio! This installation has been designed to honor our gold level supporters and our community of contributors. Supporters and team members are also acknowledged on the team page of the first stage of our new website, check it out here. And keep watching our blog and newsletter for more news on when you can come join us for an iced-tea amid produce-growing, artist-designed, planters and moss murals. It might be on ground level for now, but it's going to be awesome, and a great foresight of what's to come. 

Junk Food | About Face Installation at Gladstone Grow Op

First rendering of Junk Food: An Urban Foodscape

 In an email exchange last week, one of our project partners appropriately opened with the sentiment that she'd "usually say something about the awesome spring weather and the beginning of garden prep" but that she would refrain, sad face. On that cold, windy, grey day, we felt a little sad face-y too. Looking out the window, it was hard to imagine containers overflowing with ripe veggies any time soon.

We've got our happy faces on with this sunshine today, but we've actually been prepping to plant for weeks (well, for months really, but seedlings are in at the greenhouse!). We've got all sorts of exciting plans for this season to tell you about soon enough (one big exciting one in particular!) but let's start with the first: Gladstone Grow Op.

We're really, very excited to be working with the Gladstone on an installation piece for their inaugural four-day show, Grow Op: Exploring landscape and place. If you've ever been to the Gladstone's amazing, annual Come Up to My Room event, you'll have a rough idea of what to expect. Grow Op follows a similar format, inviting artists and designers to realize their visions within the walls of the historic hotel. The show "will facilitate a cross-disciplinary forum for landscape, garden design, art and place making within the vibrant setting of Toronto’s West Queen West neighbourhood".

The Gladstone's contribution to local art and their commitment to sustainability made fans of us long ago. Now that we've had a few planning sessions with the Grow Op crew, we're even more smitten.

Our installation, Junk Food is a collaboration between illustrator, artist and About Face art director, Lauren Pirie, multi-disciplinary artist and designer, Mahmood Popal, our own garden coordinator, Natalie Boustead, and SKETCH. It touches on themes of urban food production, food security, sustainable design and Toronto heritage and identity. The "urban foodscape"  is being built using salvaged materials, and home-made milk paint and will grow crops like lettuce and peas.

Watch our blog and the Gladstone Bag for more progress shots and join us from April 25 - 28 at the Grow Op!

Natalie and Mahmood disassembling salvaged materials at HUNTCLUB Studio

Translating the design digitally

Natalie whipping up some milk paint

Last Weekend for Local Goods at Mutts Fall Shop

Hey T.O! Go check the Fall installment of the Mutts & Co pop-up. Lots of great local clothing, jewelry, goodies and art from the likes of Muttonhead, OSC Cross, Kathryn Macnaughton and more, including canned pies from Nat and cards and prints from Lauren of AFC! This weekend is the last chance to scoop Canadian-made goods like honey, hot sauce and down-filled coats from local creatives and brands. Check the Facebook event for a full list of what's being stocked and, (eek!) it's not too early to start checking off your holiday gift list!

A Workshop for (New)Bees!

Join local beekeepers, Gurushabd and Zack at the Carrot Commons Green Roof this weekend for an intro to urban beekeeping! Fun! Bees are an integral part of our eco-system. These experts will fill you in on the whys and hows and help you get some honey out of it. They know what's up!

For more info contact Gurushabd at gurushabd@hogtownhoney.com

Mutts & Co. Variety Store Ft. All Your Local Faves, On Today through Sunday!

If you follow our happenings on the reg, you've most certainly heard us profess our love for the crew at Toronto-based clothing line, Muttonhead. Not only do they produce their goods right here in the city, using sustainable materials, but they also have a real knack for bringing together the best of local goodness from other creative Canadians.

This week the Mutts prove this yet again with what might be the best and most diverse Muttonhead pop-up shop yet, the Mutts & Co. Variety Store. Parked at Paramour at 94 Ossington (between Queen & Dundas) Paige and crew have curated an awesome little market full of local, reclaimed and fair trade food stuffs, housewares, accessories, magazines, art and, of course, clothing.

Display at Mutts & Co. ft. Stasis Preserves and TwoRibka wooden utensils

Custom 'Real-cycled' wood shelving by Jamie Miller,
upcycled glassware by Artech Studios and Lauren Pirie print

Muttonhead's latest line, designed by Meg Sinclair, is for sale alongside more than ten other local labels and scores like Dumptown's Worm Condos, the side project of the other half of Muttonhead, graphic designer Mel Sinclair.

And we'll be there too! Our pals from Reunion Island Coffee have generously supplied the beans (yet again) for iced americanos, proceeds from which will go toward the Everything Roof. We'll be whipping them up through the weekend. I've been practicing, and I must say, I'm getting good.... and pretty wired, as made obvious by the sign below, made after a couple tester coffees.

Everything Roof illustrated prints will also be sold to benefit the project. Other prints and cards from AFC co-founder, Lauren Pirie will be available as well as prints from AFC supporting artists Kathryn Macnaughton and Talia Shipman, records from the amazing Shad and a back room photo gallery featuring the work of Matthew Crisp and Beau Partlow. 


Okay, enough of the caffeine induced yammering, just come by between now and Sunday. There's even more to see (and taste) there, including (if anyone is down for MORE coffee) Sam James coffee-infused ice cream bars created by Brandon Olsen of Black Hoof (!!!).


Or if you prefer some gin-induced yammering (and shopping!) swing by the launch party on Thursday evening. 


See you there!

Last Chance to Submit to Bike Photo Exhibit

illustration by Lauren Pirie

The Toronto Cyclists Union is hosting a photography exhibit at the Centre For Social Innovation, Annex on Thursday, February 2nd. The open call for submissions closes tomorrow, so time to hustle! We know all you photog friends of ours have some lovely shots of so-and-so pedaling through the park last Summer (remember Summer??). So do a little digging and drop them off tomorrow at the front desk at CSI. Or dig a little less and pull out a Fall or Winter biking shot; the theme of the show is The Four Seasons of Cycling, which means you could also submit a cycling-focused shot taken in the Spring. And remind us all that it will eventually come around again...

365 Days of Cycling: An Evening of Art and Cycling.

Submission details here.

Facebook event here.

Jan 25: UPDATE!
Digital submissions will be accepted through Friday. ALSO, 100% of the selling price of any work sold goes directly to the artist. Wooh! Check the detes here.

Tomorrow: Give Clothes, Get Fun!

Got some gently-used clothing to purge? Bring it by the Garrison tomorrow night and Vox Toronto will donate it to The Yonge Street Mission. Swap your excess sweaters for an eve of music and art. Check the Facebook event here. If you're not able to make the party tomorrow, you can drop your donation off on the main floor of the Centre For Social Innovation, Annex location today until 4pm.

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artist Series | Round3: Illustration Nation

Greenhouse Gallery kicks off tomorrow and runs through Sunday!

The three ladies in this round of the artist features each spread their creativity over several mediums; graphic design, photography, painting, writing, drawing, the occasional living room dance party... though, it's probably safe to say that they all primarily identify as illustrators. The first two, admittedly, are serious art-crushes of mine, and the last one, well... the last one's me. I'll leave the bio in third person for good measure. 

Juliana Neufeld 

 
Juliana Neufeld is an illustrator and mixed media artist living and working happily in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been inspired by the whimsy of children’s illustration, journal art and an obsession with textiles. Her work has been showcased in galleries in Japan, France, Los Angeles and across Canada. Some of her working folks include The Globe and Mail, Arts and Crafts Records, Element Skateboards andSpinmaster Toys.

www.juliananeufeld.com 

www.juliananeufeld.tumblr.com

Juliana will have large framed giclee prints as well as limited edition 8x10 prints for sale and silent auction tomorrow and Sunday at Greenhouse Gallery.

 

Kathryn Macnaughton 

Kathryn Macnaughton is an illustrator and graphic artist who lives and works in Toronto. She graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design. She combines her drawings with collage in a hue of light pastel shades, mixing soft pornographic material with random objects, patterns or typefaces. Her work has appeared in magazines, on books and album covers. She recently finished the book covers for six John Steinbeck classic novel for penguin.

www.kathrynmacnaughton.com.

Kathryn will have large paintings and limited edition 8x14 prints for sale and auction tomorrow and Sunday.

Lauren Pirie

 
After a year of wandering around the world, Lauren studied Communication Design at Ryerson University followed by Illustration at OCAD in Toronto, wandering a little more in between. She still thinks some of her most influential education was acquired during summers at camp in Northern Ontario.

Lauren currently spends her days and nights and small hours of the morning making drawings, writing stories and working on various illustration and design projects in music, fashion, and for NGOs like the About Face Collective, an art and environmental project which she co-founded. Lauren likes finding meaning (or simply amusement) in things that make little sense. She likes little things, (but loves run-on sentences).

www.laurenpirie.com

Lauren will have framed drawings, limited edition prints, greeting cards and books for sale and auction tomorrow and Sunday.

Tomorrow's the day! Join us at the Fresh City Greenhouse, 70 Canuck Ave from 11-6 this Saturday AND Sunday. See Facebook event for full details here.

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artist Series | Round2: Broadbent Nation

We are thrilled to have not one, not two, but all three Broadbent siblings exhibiting this weekend at Greenhouse Gallery. Team Broadbent has been supportive of the AFC since the beginning; contributing art work, working volunteer shifts, dj-ing events, introducing us to our now-project-partners at Sketch... If they weren't so kind and generous, this trio of blond, super-human talents would be pretty intimidating...

Rose Broadbent

Rose Broadbent spends her time making art and traveling the earth. Her work often reflects worldly struggles of power and injustice that she has witnessed. She does not commit to one but many mediums. Rose is a head designer of the collective The New BEAT, while also art director of the vintage fashion line, Bridge & Bardot. Her roots lie in the progressive world of New Media, from which she graduated at Ryerson University. Rose continues to seek to understand, and to create good things in the world.

Rose will have a selection of watercolour pieces for sale and auction this weekend.

www.rosebroadbent.com 

Justin Broadbent

Justin Broadbent is an accomplished Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist. His work includes video performance, poems, funny ideas, illustration, design, music video direction, and installation. Justin is also a self-taught photographer.

Co-directing music videos under the moniker HotDogGarbage, Justin has done work for recording artists such as Shad and Metric. He has achieved a CBC Bucky Award and three Much Music Video Award nominations for his work.

Justin chooses layered projects that challenged his expectations. His work often centers on meaning-of-life topics, which he delivers with a glimmer of charm and wit. Hence, he’s often reminding people that the sun is a burning ball of fire floating in outer space!

Justin’s work is inspired by the impossibility of a seed becoming a tree, thrift stores, clever lyrics, and human perseverance.

Justin will be have a selection of drawings and collages for sale and auction this weekend, some from his recent residency in Miami.

www.justinbroadbent.com

www.hotdoggarbage.com

 

Joy Broadbent

 

Joy lives and works as a painter in Toronto. She completed her Honours BFA at the University of Western Ontario. Her paintings combine abstraction with representation by way of a diverse range of painterly techniques. The paint itself seems to mask and sometimes reveal bits of organic material and human‐made creations in flat planes of ambiguous origins. Her current works present a mystical vision of rose gardens at night, with themes of revelation, time, destruction and renewal.

Joy will have a selection of large and small paintings for sale and silent auction at Greenhouse Gallery.

www.joybroadbent.com

Greenhouse Gallery | Art Fundraiser for the Everything Roof, this Saturday and Sunday! Facebook event here

Greenhouse Gallery Featured Artists Announced

We are just a little over a week away from Greenhouse Gallery, our fundraising art event with Fresh City Farms at their Downsview Park greenhouse. Yay! (Also, eek!) Also, howww is it November next week? Guh.

Between now and then you probably have a gourd to carve into the likeness of your favorite pop star or (least) favorite municipal politician and some combination of spandex and sparkles and rainbow wig to don. That sounds fun and all, but you're really just counting down the days until you get to enjoy (and buy) the work of 30 renowned local artists in an urban greenhouse while sipping some local wine, and swaying to tunes from talented T.O. musicians, aren't you?

Over the next week we will post features on some of these incredible artists on our blog (here!). Check back through the week to see some sneak previews of some of the work that will be sold and silent-auctioned off.  Check the Facebook event for full details, and go ahead and invite your friends (and your favorite municipal politicians). And come! Of course, we welcome costumes.


Greenhouse Gallery Art Fundraiser for The Everything Roof 
Featured Artists:

Adrian Forrow
Alex Kurina
Childface Sausage
Claire Hall
Danielle Hession
Darlene Huynh
E V Mary Stephens
Emily Stoddart
Erica Brisson
Eunice Luk
Josh Raskin
Juliana Neufeld
Justin Broadbent
Justyna Werbel
Kathryn Macnaughton
Laura Mensinga
Lauren Pirie
Lisa Visser
Mahmood Popal
Mark Harris Sherman
Owen Wong
Rodrigo Marti
Rose Broadbent
Sarah D'Angelo
Srdjan Segan
Talia Shipman
Tammy Yiu
Virgil Baruchel

Plus:

Jewelry byKate Schwan

Hand-knit accessories from Muttonhead
 
And art classes for auction by Erica Beyea of Fine Oak Art School


See facebook event for more information on music line-up, workshops and more!

Greenhouse Gallery | Field Trip to Fresh City Farms

Our curating team, led (and transported) by Rodrigo Marti, ventured up to visit our friends from Fresh City Farms at their greenhouse at Downsview Park this morning. I was lucky to get to know the FCF crew while working with them on their branding and web design earlier this year. Their mission to empower young people in the GTA to farm organically everywhere from backyards to rooftops to this greenhouse had the AFC pretty excited. So when they suggested that we work together on an event this Fall, we were all over it. And when they told us we could hang art in their greenhouse, we got more than a little nerdy about it. I mean, what more perfect a setting to raise funds for an urban rooftop garden created by local artists than in an urban greenhouse with an art show? Hence our little art team field trip.

Our visit timed up with FCF seeding their greenhouse for the season. So by the time we convert this space into a gallery (for the weekend of November 5th & 6th) these beds will be green with organic veggie leaves. You can get these same veggies delivered to your door each week straight from Fresh City if you live in T.O. Check them out, check back here for more info on the event and mark the date down on your calendars!