Creative Ramblings #9: Love Art Toronto 2014

This past Thursday I traveled to Toronto to attend Love Art Toronto. Viva Vida Art Gallery exhibited my work at this first ever edition of the Affordable Art Fair in Canada, they also brought the works of Marie-Pierre Daigle, David Kelavey, Ok Hee Kim, Martine Legrand, Gordon Pym, SooZ (Susan Jillette) and Bev Wight. In this week's episode of Creative Ramblings I take you on a tour of this amazing art event.

Love Art is the Canadian edition of the globally successful Affordable Art Fair, which was launched in 1999 by Will Ramsay. The mission of the fair is to make the process of buying artwork welcoming, fun and engaging.

The show opened on Wednesday May 7th with a private viewing. After a full fair day on Thursday the Love, Life and Sketch Charity Gala opened at 6pm for a night in support of the transformative power of the arts! Sketch is a community arts development initiative in Toronto engaging young people who are homeless and living on the margins. A portion of the proceeds of the night were donated to this amazing cause. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday there were a host of different talks and tours as well as an ever changing display of amazing and beautiful artwork by 40 different galleries from all across the world.

A very special wedding gift.

On April 26th I attended a beautiful wedding, the bride and groom are not only very good friends of mine but they're also avid collectors of my work. I wanted to give them a very special wedding gift, so I created an artwork specially for them.

Because they had purchased one of the pieces from 'Discoveries: Montréal' I decided to make the artwork in the same size and style so the pieces would go together. Because I wanted to create something that would reflect their journey as a couple I had my husband, who was the best man, ask some sneaky questions. He figured out where they had their first date, where they had their first kiss and which Montreal locations were extra special to them.

I took pictures of all of these special spots and had a little walk around their neighbourhood to get some additional material to round out my composition. Of course all of this had to be done in secret, every time the happy couple came for a visit I had to hide all the evidence!

Usually when I create a commissioned piece the client is part of the creative process but in this case, because it was a surprise, I had to have faith in my ability to anticipate their taste and create the piece without their input which made the creative process extra exciting.

When they saw the painting on their wedding day they I knew all my sneaky research had paid off. They absolutely loved the piece and they were blown away by all the little details that were included. One of those details, the green hearts in the lower left corner turned out to be extra special. The bride told me afterwards that she couldn't figure out how I knew that those hearts were so special to them. Well in fact, I didn't, when I was creating the composition I was missing something in that corner and the idea of using the hearts just sort of came to me, it kind of felt like one of those 'lightning bolt ideas', I just knew that using them would be the right choice, must've been the universe talking. :)

The painting is now proudly on display in their apartment together with it's brother (or are paintings considered to be female?) 'Pointe-Claire'. I hope it will function as a reminder of their journey together and their special day. Lori and Gary I wish you much happiness and many new adventure in your future together!