Junction Art Tour: The White Goddess Graces Pandemonium

Map: The Local Option Art Awards Participated Businesses
Credit: wtjhs.ca

The Local Option Art Awards Tour on Saturday August 9th was a great success despite the rain.

Popping in and out of participating businesses along Dundas Street West, one of the most popular stops on the tour was Forever Interiors and it was great to see the forty Junction Centennial souvenir trains and another thirty in production by local artists; students from Western Tech. Using fragments of our past to create the future for young people is one of the great benefits that has come to the WTJHS under the kindly auspices of Mr. Martin Scott. Four dollars of the sale from each train goes to the WTJHS.

The tour stopped at Phil’s Espresso Bar for a coffee break during the worst of the rain. Tables of artists discussing everything from the origin of vaudeville through pantomime to the Elysian mysteries in ancient Greece. It was also noted that theatre as we understand it today was born at the same in the same place as democracy. Poets use theatres as venues to discuss issues of the day.

The Junction had five theatres during the early twentieth century. Peter LIU Gang’s illustration of the Beaver theatre was the first artwork on our tour. Pantomime and vaudeville are direct descendents of that earlier theatrical tradition. The comedy of contemporary folk culture created laughter at the next table and a couple on the high stools in the window were looking across the road to Jim Macdonald’s White Goddess reclinging gracefully in the window of Pandemonium Books and Discs.

Next tour Saturday August 23, 2 pm leaving from the "Junction City" platform.

Hope to see you there.

Cara Reeves, WTJHSCC.

Take a free art tour led by Nathan Stroud and Tia Gillespie
Twenty Local Businesses along Dundas Street West Showing 27 Artists!

Please visit WTJHS.ca or Latitude 44 for a list of participating businesses.

links:
The AJO: Toronto Art Junction Option + Guided Walking Tours
Toronto Junction's Rich Living Exposition of Art: the Local Option
Vital Links Between Arts and Business: Toronto Junction Local Option
Explore the Local Toronto Art Scene and Vote for Your Favourite Artist
insidetoronto.com: Celebrating art is the function at the Junction
by Lisa Rainford, July 31, 2008

photo:

Forever Interiors: a series of "Junction City" Trains at the Latitude 44
Local Option Art Awards Tour 2008
Photo: artjunction.blogspot.com

"Junction City" Trains are a West Toronto Junction Historical Society initiative proposed and facilitated by Martin Scott of Forever Interiors. These little trains, made from ceiling tiles and wood reclaimed from local renovations, are small pieces of our past used to create our future, "... a playful, portable representation of the Junction," as Cara Reeves calls them.

Contact Forever Interiors
Designing New Stuff from Old Stuff
Furnishings, Decor, Antiques
2903 Dundas Street West, Toronto, 416 291 2001
www.foreverinteriors.com
Or Latitude 44
Gallery ~ Framing ~ Decor
2900 Dundas Street West,Toronto, 416-769-2900
www.latitude44gallery.ca

About Forever Interiors
Forever Interiors is about reusing, rebuilding, and custom building used furniture and decor. We collect intact and broken "quality" furniture that we intern rebuild into something entirely new for sale in our showroom. We also custom build a number of items ranging from Coat Racks to Harvest Tables to our customers exacting specification. We are a small and young store (3 years old) but with creative ideas that have brought us to the attention of Toronto Star, City TVs' Breakfast Television, and the Toronto Life's top 500 Stores in Toronto.