Get to know SKETCH Working Arts!

SKETCH Working Arts is an artist studio and event space located in the vibrant Trinity Bellwoods neighborhood. Studios are available for rent for personal artistic production, workshops and private events from 9am-9pm, 7 days a week. Home to a music studio, audio production lab, movement studio, ceramics studio and kiln, an industrial kitchen and two dynamic studio spaces, everyone is welcome to join the SKETCH community in art making at the historic Youngplace building at 180 Shaw St.

SKETCH runs free arts programs for aspiring and emerging creatives 18-35yrs, who are navigating poverty Studios are accessible to mobility devices via a ramp and elevator. 

SKETCH has sliding scale rental fees and offers lower prices for individual artists and higher prices for for-profit organizations. Please see sketch.ca/rent for individual pricing options.

Booking inquiries, tour requests and questions can be sent to spaceshare@sketch.ca

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Rent SKETCH Studios!

Pottery Studio & Kiln

This cozy ceramics studio is fully equipped for professional ceramics workshops, or for an individual or small collective to hand build or throw on the wheel. Stop lugging your ceramics around and benefit from our in-house technician and onsite kiln for your bisque and glaze firing needs.

EQUIPMENT: Large kiln, 3 wheels, extruder, slab roller, various hand tools, boards, glazes, table and stools.

STUDIO SIZE: 480 Sq Ft

KILN SPECS: Shelves are 13 x 26 inches, with 12 shelves in the kiln. Cone 6 firing for glazes and clays. Requests for firings lower than Cone 6 or luster firing are also available. 

CAPACITY: 6

To rent and for more details visit: www.sketch.ca/rent/pottery-studio/

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Music Studio: Rehearsal Space & Control Booth

Available separately for music lessons or brand practice, mixing and mastering, or paired for live recording. Fully soundproofed, the Music Studio is the perfect set-up for music rehearsal, recording music, podcasts and soundbites. Bring your own or enjoy the shared instruments. The Control booth is also available separately for post-production needs.

CONTROL BOOTH EQUIPMENT: Mac computer, fully outfitted prosumer sound board with Apollo, Ableton, and accompanying recording gear.

REHEARSAL SPACE EQUIPMENT: Drum kit, multiple acoustic guitars, electric guitar and bass, Various amps and cords, cajón drum, microphones and talk-back system connected to control booth.

SIZE: 315 Sq Ft

CAPACITY: 8 rehearsal space; 3 control booth

To rent and for more details visit: www.sketch.ca/rent/music-studio/

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Movement Studio

This beautiful studio has large west facing windows providing ethereal natural light throughout the day. The custom springboard floor provides a warm and comfortable surface for all movement activities. Perfect for wellness courses, dance or theater rehearsal, regular group dance classes, or expressive music or movement classes for children.

EQUIPMENT: Speakers, mobile benches, mirror wall, and 2 barres.

SIZE: 900 Sq Ft

CAPACITY: 20 in motion

To rent and for more details visit: www.sketch.ca/rent/movement-studio/

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SKETCH Working Arts is a non-profit community arts organization that runs free arts programs for aspiring and emerging creatives 18-35 years old who are navigating poverty and precarity due to systemic oppression with a focus on those who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, and other racialized young people. Through free arts based programs, wrap-around services and access to studio space, young people can experience the transformative power of the arts; build leadership and sustainable livelihood in the arts; and cultivate social and environmental change through the arts.

Stay tuned to find out what courses will be offered in the Fall by visiting sketch.ca or following  @sketchtoronto.

For more details, visit: www.sketch.ca/programs/what-we-offer/

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SKETCH Working Arts, 180 Shaw St

 

It's Giving Tuesday!

Today is November 30th, also known as Giving Tuesday! As the opening day of giving season, Giving Tuesday is a day dedicated to supporting your favourite organizations and the causes closest to your heart.

Our community supports us in countless ways and the past 20 months have cemented our belief in the transformative power of artists coming together when we need them most. We saw it in our Akin Rent Relief Fund, our virtual events, our studios, and amongst our very own members and team. 

[Image Description: On a white background is text that reads How have we allocated resources from the Akin Rent Relief Fund?. A pie graph breaks down three sections: the biggest slice in the darkest orange has text that reads $20,389 distributed out to over a 100 artists." The second slice in orange has text that reads, $1,159 Akin's admin, and the final darker orange slice has text that reads $1640 left in funds. In the right upper corner is the Akin logo.]

Our Akin Rent Relief fund is our pride and joy, supporting over a 100 artists and counting. Providing Akin artist members with anonymous one-time emergency grants towards their studio membership costs, the fund provides short term financial aid in unexpected situations or times of financial instability.

For the next 24 hours, we are hoping to reach a goal of $5000, funds that will allow us to support at least 5 artists per month for the next 5 months. These funds will be placed directly in the hands of our artist studio members.

Image Description: Text that reads Help us reach our goal! $5000. This amount can support 5 artists for the next 5 months. Akin’s logo is at the top right.

This Giving Tuesday, we are asking you to give to artists; to support their practices, their work, and to join us in our determination to make space for them in our city.

We’re grateful for you, and for the effort you put into showing us how essential it is to uplift each other during times of need.

From the Gardiner Museum Blog: masa is clay

From the Gardiner Museum Blog:

We invited local artists and writers to interact with and reflect on our Community Arts Space projects. Here, artist and writer janet romero-leiva reflects on the Artists-In-Residence Project: The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders, presented in partnership with Akin and Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization.

as the days get shorter and cooler            the darkness longer
they prepare for their departure south
back to the place their ancestors have been returning to for generations
knowing they cannot withstand the winter ahead
they have rested and reproduced
soaked in the varieties of milkweed especially planted for them around this city
this summer
a supportive and loving gesture to help them thrive and guarantee their return next spring
a gesture for survival
a gesture for migration

yet
an absent gesture when the butterfly is of the human kind
conveniently forgetting that human is you                        and the monarch is them
you speak of them as those people who come to take your jobs
plug up your city with crime
tainting proper english with dirty tongues
you
so perfectly living a colonized life you forget
english is not native to turtle island to this land
nor are you
forget where you came from
how dare they try to make a better life for themselves on this land?
unlike the monarchs
you have no recollection of how you got here
unlike the monarchs
you did not fly from mexico to canada taking four generations to return (back)
unlike the monarchs
you do not know the road back to your people
their genetic memory so accurate that is the only map they rely on
you
oblivious to the reality of your arrival
forget the migrant is you and you are the immigrant

the 18. 39. 72. year old immigrant
taken from her land generations past
transplanted to another continent to be uprooted again and again because
citizenship is not free and she needs to eat
forced to do work she never agreed to but too scared to retaliate because
her children need an education and she does not speak the language
making home where her feet touch land because
memory is in the body and her grand kids were seeds in her uterus before they were called into life
…those grand kids
learning through kokum. abuelita. lola. how to connect to the world
flooded with curiosity about her life back home
a home so far back the only memory she recalls is the masa in her hands
4 years old standing at the kitchen table with her tia
soft and squishy grainy and cool in her tiny hands
pat patting back and forth back and forth
until a perfectly round tortilla appeared
lumpy uneven and filled with tender 4 year old pride
the smile on her tia’s face the highlight of that afternoon
she ensures to assure her grand kids ancestral knowledge is within
even when broken and torn the knowledge cannot be stolen
it resides in the crevices of our bones
the scent of our skin
the longing of our hearts
the looking…

at these glorious monarch butterflies shaped by 1000 pairs of hands
know that boxes of clay were carried and carted across this city from community to community in the hopes of having elders and children share in the pat patting of clay to create each piece
back            and forth    back and             forth
carving the shapes and lines of the wings
mixing exact shades of yellows and oranges delicately brushed on
thumbprints and lumps creases and scratches
the perfection in their imperfections
broken and healing
the perfection in our imperfections
each (of us) an imprint of the masa that is the clay that is the land that is the truth
of the monarchs return south towards the sun in time to harvest the corn
of the monarchs return north to their breeding locations
of our return to ourselves                                                     and what we long for

–

janet romero-leiva is a queer feminist latinx visual artist and writer whose work explores immigrant bodies, denied aboriginality, queer and of colour existence, and the experience of living in between north and south, between spanish and english.

About The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders

Every summer and winter, monarch butterflies migrate across the North American continent. Coinciding with the arrival of monarch butterflies in Canada and their departure to Mexico, the Davenport Perth Community Ministry, alongside Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization, held a series workshops and events within the Davenport Perth community. These workshops led to the creation of a multitude of ceramic butterflies that highlight Turtle Island’s connection with ancient Indigenous cultures and the monarch, on view at the Gardiner Museum from August 22 – September 4.

Free Summer Programming at the Gardiner Museum

Community Arts Space: What we long for

July 9 to September 4

The Gardiner Museum presents a full summer of free programming, including community exhibitions, hands-on workshops, talks, and a podcast series co-presented with Hyperallergic. Inspired by the transformative possibilities of clay, the Community Arts Space is a platform for local artists, youth, curators, and community organizers.

How can we take care of ourselves, as well as each other?

This year’s Community Arts Space is inspired by the theme “What we long for”, and features four public projects that engage with community healing, survival tools, transformative justice, the gaps between community and institutional memory, and how craft creates opportunities for acknowledgment and action.

Visit gardinermuseum.com/whatwelongfor for the full schedule and to register for free events.

Shary Boyle, Triumph of the Will, 2010, Gardiner Museum, Gift of Sarah and Tom Milroy. Photo: Brian Boyle.

The Projects: Art Movements

July 9 – August 20
Co-presented with Hyperallergic

Hosted by Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic, this limited-run podcast inspired by the Gardiner’s collection invites prominent artists like Kent Monkman and Shary Boyle to explore the social history of ceramics and its multifaceted role in our culture. Through personal anecdotes, art historical reflection, and archival recordings, this four-part series explores issues at the intersection of contemporary ceramics and museums.

Learn more here: https://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/event/art-movements/

Intimate Encounters - Animate Histories

August 1 – 15
Co-presented with The 519, Salon Noir, and YYZ Artists Outlet

Inspired by the ‘cruising’ histories of nearby Queen’s Park, artist Abdi Osman and curator Ellyn Walker consider the diverse ways in which culturally-specific experiences of desire, physical expression, and social connection take up space across Toronto. Intimate Encounters ~ Animate Histories makes visible the dignity, love, and generative practices embedded in local Black, Trans, and Queer histories through community art-making workshops, talks, and an exhibition.

Learn more here: https://bit.ly/2ZPESQM

Reading Room: Queen’s Park Oral History Transcriptions
August 14 & September 12, 6:30 – 7:30 pm
Join us for a collective reading and discussion of anonymous transcripts from artist Abdi Osman’s oral history research around cruising encounters in Queen’s Park.

The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders

August 22 – September 4
Co-presented with Akin and Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization

Coinciding with the arrival of the monarch butterflies in Canada and their departure to Mexico, the Davenport Perth Community Ministry, alongside Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization, held a series of clay butterfly-making workshops facilitates by artists Lourdes (Lumy) Fuentes and Tina Conlon. These ceramic butterflies, installed in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall and Ancient Americas Gallery, are intended to mobilize conversation and action surrounding both the decline of the monarch and the migrant crisis.

Learn more here: https://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/event/sin-fronteras-monarch-butterfly-project/

The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders Project Launch
August 22, 6 – 8 pm
All are welcome to attend the public opening of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project, featuring a butterfly dance performed by seniors of the Davenport-Perth Community, music, refreshments, and more.

Family Sunday: Spread Your Wings
August 25, 11 am – 3 pm
Just before the monarch butterflies begin their annual migration to Mexico, join us for a special ceramic butterfly-making workshop in English and Spanish.

The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project – A Flight Path Without Borders

Every summer and winter, monarch butterflies migrate across the North American continent. Coinciding with the arrival of monarch butterflies in Canada and their departure to Mexico, the Davenport Perth Community Ministry, alongside Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization, held a series workshops and events within the Davenport Perth community. These workshops led to the creation of a multitude of ceramic butterflies that highlight Turtle Island’s connection with ancient Indigenous cultures and the monarch.

When: Thu Aug 22 to Sep 04, 2019

Where: Gardiner Museum, 111 Queen’s Park, Toronto

Part of the Community Arts Space: What we long for
Artists-In-Residence
Co-presented with Akin and Canada Nos Une Multicultural Organization

Facilitated by Monterrey, Mexico-born artist Lourdes (Lumy) Fuentes and Community Minister and artist Tina Conlon during their residency at Akin St Clair, these art-making activities explore the challeng­es faced by migrants in the context of the monarch but­terfly’s risk of extinction. These ceramic butterflies, installed in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall and Ancient Americas Gallery, are intended to mobilize conversation and action surrounding the both decline of the monarch and the migrant crisis.

Image source: Gardiner Museum

Programming

July 17, 6 – 9 pm
Clay & Conversation
Make ceramic butterflies that will be part of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project.

July 24, 6 – 9 pm
Clay & Conversation
Make ceramic butterflies that will be part of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project.

August 22, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition Launch
All are welcome to attend the public opening of The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project, featuring a butterfly dance performed by seniors of the Davenport-Perth Community, music, refreshments, and more.

August 25, 11 am – 3 pm
Family Sunday: Spread Your Wings
Just before the monarch butterflies begin their annual migration to Mexico, join us for a special ceramic butterfly-making workshop in English and Spanish.

About Community Arts Space: What we long for

Grounded in the ability of clay to transform, Community Arts Space is a platform for experimentation and socially-engaged art. Established in 2016, the project connects artists, makers, organizers, and residents through the creation of public projects that inspire social action. This year, the Gardiner is showcasing four public projects inspired by the theme “What we long for.”

Community Arts Space Open Studio: Treaty Talk with Akin King artist Louis Esmé this Saturday at the Gardiner Museum

Sat May 26, 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Gardiner Museum, 111 Queen's Park, Toronto
Registration required. 

Part of the Community Arts Space: Recent Histories at the Gardiner Museum, Treaty Talk is Co-presented with Akin King artist Louis Esmé and Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak Bluejays Dancing Together Collective. 

Join knowledgeable community members Jodi Lynn Maracle (Kanien’kehá:ka) and Shane H. Camastro (anishinaabe) in this short, interactive workshop on Treaty relationships and responsibilities in Dish with One Spoon Territory. As practicing artists and educators from this place, they will facilitate activities and discussions to root community arts and museum practices in these original agreements.

About the Community Arts Space: Recent Histories:
Inspired by the transformative aspects of ceramics, both real and metaphorical, the Community Arts Space is the Gardiner’s incubator for arts-based community projects. In collaboration with local artists, designers, and collectives, the Museum will mount five public projects that examine how cultural knowledge is passed on or performed, and the role of the museum in cultivating the so-called lived and living memory.

About Louis Esmé:
Louis Esmé (Mi’kmaq-Acadian, Irish) is an artist, writer, and illustrator whose social art practice spans over 20 years working within grassroots, artist-run, and academic spaces. A co-founder of Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together Collective, which has gathered knowledge, stories, and desires for re-urbanized Two-Spirit people and their relations since 2012, Esmé’s work is granny craft/old media with social commentary akin to Statler & Waldorf from Sesame Street. For the Gardiner’s Intervention Project, which will evoke participation and educational potential within the expanded field of ceram­ics, Esmé will make seven clay districts representing the Mi’kmaq Seven Directions in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall, lobby, and permanent collection galleries. Vessels referencing Woodland pottery forms will reckon with ongoing colonialisms, while offering witness to Indigenous survivance on the Dish with One Spoon Territory.

Community Arts Space Open Studio Schedule: 

1 – 5 pm | Micro Comedies, Macro Tragedies
2 – 4 pm | Treaty Talk
2 – 5 pm | ‘Take a Future, Leave a Future’ All-Ages Game
3 – 4 pm | Invisible Footprints Panel
4 – 5 pm | Panic in the Labyrinth Open Mic

The Community Arts Space is the Gardiner Museum’s annual summer incubator program for arts-based community projects conceived by up-and-coming local creatives. Since 2015, we’ve partner with artists, curators, and cultural innovators to present free, accessible programming—from live musical performances and film screenings, to collaborative art workshops—all inspired by the transformative aspects of clay.

This year’s theme, Recent Histories, is inspired the Gardiner’s mission to be an active force in the community, and to truly reflect the histories, lived experiences, and traditions of its publics. Through five different project streams, our partners will transform the Museum according to this theme, activating our 307-square-metre third-floor Exhibition Hall as well as our Outdoor Plaza.

The Gardiner Museum announces 2018 Community Art Space Partners!

Since the summer of 2016, the Gardiner Museum’s Community Arts Space program has acted as an incubator for arts-based community projects. Inspired by the transformative aspects of ceramics, both real and metaphorical, the Community Arts Space initiates both dialogue, and the hands-on creation of equitable and inclusive cultural initiatives that engage and give voice to local communities.

The Community Arts Space project will be running for the summer of 2018 from July 3 to August 31. This year’s theme, Recent Histories, is inspired the Gardiner’s mission to be an active force in the community, and to truly reflect the histories, lived experiences, and traditions of its publics. Through five different project streams, our partners will transform the Museum according to this theme, activating our 307-square-metre third-floor Exhibition Hall as well as our Outdoor Plaza.

Akin is pleased to be a community partner on this project and will be providing studio space for Louis Esmé, one of the 2018 Community Art Space project partners.

Louis Esmé (Mi’kmaq-Acadian, Irish) is an artist, writer, and illustrator whose social art practice spans over 20 years working within grassroots, artist-run, and academic spaces. A co-founder of Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak // Bluejays Dancing Together Collective, which has gathered knowledge, stories, and desires for re-urbanized Two-Spirit people and their relations since 2012, Esmé’s work is granny craft/old media with social commentary akin to Statler & Waldorf from Sesame Street. For the Gardiner’s Intervention Project, which will evoke participation and educational potential within the expanded field of ceram­ics, Esmé will make seven clay districts representing the Mi’kmaq Seven Directions in the Gardiner’s Exhibition Hall, lobby, and permanent collection galleries. Vessels referencing Woodland pottery forms will reckon with ongoing colonialisms, while offering witness to Indigenous survivance on the Dish with One Spoon Territory. You can see Esmé’s work on display at the Gardiner Museum from August 21-31, 2018. 

Find out more about the Gardiner Museum's Community Art Space Partners by clicking the link below: