In which a new curator enters to the sound of music
2014! What a year! Let’s begin in January…
It was in January 2014 that I was offered the job of curator, and I was more than excited to accept. Although my first university degree was in economics, I had followed my passion in Canada and earned two master’s degrees, in Art History and History. Now I had found the perfect job for my interests and my education.
I therefore set out to expand the presence of the Georgina Arts Centre, to move it from its position as a wonderful local art centre to being a wonderful Local and National Art Centre.
Although the job was officially called ‘curator,’ my tasks were multifarious. I was responsible for the website and for social media, and wrote daily posts for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as regular eblasts about upcoming events for subscribers.
I was editor for the Palette, the quarterly newsletter of the GAC, a task that took a lot of time for page setup, and even more time to chase down everyone who was supposed to write a paragraph or two for an issue…
At first, I used the old template, but I soon changed it! Here are two of those early issues, full of images! Are you in one of the photos? Click the images to read the issue.
In parallel with this, I spent many hours each week volunteering in different ways: I worked the front desk (Did I ‘man’ the front desk? ‘lady’ it? Maybe I ‘personed’ it…); occasionally I developed some classes and camps (especially for children) and helped the accountant, Lynda Gaddas, to write grant applications, not to mention helping to mop the floor after a flood in the Main Gallery caused by a leaking roof.
As curator, my first task, and it was an urgent one, was to find an artist for the March exhibition. The person who had been engaged had not signed the contract and seemed to have disappeared. Of course, there was always the Permanent Collection that could be hung in an emergency.
But I wanted to start my curatorship with more of a show of initiative.
I had met several local painters during the previous few years, and decided to reach out to one of them, Thelma Sellers, to see whether she happened to have thirty paintings on hand that we could exhibit.
She did not. She only had about fifteen paintings. She thought her friend and mentor, Zoe Perrin, might have some, but she too would probably only have fifteen or so works available.
Despair! But hang on – twice fifteen is thirty… Would they be willing to exhibit together? And so there came about Breaking Free, my first curated exhibition at the Georgina Art Gallery:
I created and presented art history classes, in order to make money for the gallery, and of course together with my husband Steeve, I continued to create and present art shows (Art Scandals and Arts Café).
I pondered for some time how to get more exhibitions into the Gallery. I did not want to shorten the duration of each exhibition – six weeks seemed a good length to allow people to visit when they could, and even come more than once. Of course, there was also the Bruce Smith Gallery, a wide staircase leading to the basement and the emergency exit, named in honour of the philanthropist who gave the Chiarandini paintings which form the basis of the Permanent Collection. It was used for exhibitions of those works.
Then suddenly I had an idea: why not divide the Main Gallery into two galleries? In order to see how this works you need to know the layout.
You reach the gallery up six steps from the entrance area. To the right is a blank wall.
to the left is a kind of three-sided alcove…
…and the Main gallery is straight ahead.
Since the alcove is a separate area, why not use it as a separate gallery?! And so I had three galleries, where I could create three exhibitions simultaneously: the Main Gallery with its four walls, the Alcove Gallery with its three walls, and the Bruce Smith Gallery with its two walls.
I joked to my husband Steeve that it would be complete if I could have another gallery with just one wall… For example, the blank wall at the top of the stairs…
One, two, three, four walls, for one, two, three, four separate Galleries! I named them Main Gallery (for the four walls), Alcove Gallery, Bruce Smith Gallery (this name was already in place), and THE WALL. The Main Gallery was for artists who signed a contract to exhibit about thirty works, the Alcove Gallery was dedicated to exhibitions of Indigenous artists, and the Bruce Smith Gallery displayed works by Chiarandini and Bruce Smith.
What was THE WALL for, then? It was the best exposed of all the galleries; as you walk into the Georgina Arts Centre you see it to the left, above your head. An imposing position! It should therefore be used to showcase the jewel of the Art Gallery – the Permanent Collection.
There was room for four average size paintings, and (in 2014) there were four artists in the Collection (York Wilson had arrived – more about this in a moment).
The process then was to display one painting by each artist, and to change the exhibition each month. Thus, it would be possible to display the entire Permanent Collection every five years.
But I wanted more from THE WALL. I wanted the viewer to understand what the artist was intending with each painting or photograph. I therefore wrote a page of explanation for each display, laminated it, and put it in a box than I attached underneath (you can see it on this photo).
I would have liked to add three armchairs and a coffee pot, but at the time there was no budget and so I had to be content with the laminated page. It was more than appreciated! I got wonderful feedback from visitors.
→ CHAPTER 5, PART 2 coming very soon!