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New Partnerships for ARAS Partnering and collaborating have become the modus operandi of many organizations in the last decade and the Avenue Road Arts School is no exception. The Arts School is teaming up with Meals on Wheels to send artwork to frail and disabled people who need to have their meals delivered to them. This project was the brainchild of Julie Frost, Visual Arts and Professional Learning Program Coordinator at the Avenue Road Arts School. Many of the children who attend classes at the Avenue Road Arts School will create the artwork, which will be laminated and made into placemats to be delivered to them at Christmas time. Southwest Plastics has generously agreed to donate the materials and labour involved in the project.
One new initiative that we are launching is the sponsorship of our newsletter. With a readership of over 7500, the newsletter promises to get an organization's logo and product information out to our community. As well, sponsorship of the newsletter ensures that the Avenue Road Arts School and Arts for Children of Toronto will carry on publishing the Splash Newsletter — making certain that people continue to "dive into the imagination." When partnerships are mutually beneficial, one plus one makes much more than two. It is gratifying for all those involved and opens the doors to possibilities one might never have thought of. If you are interested in sponsoring a newsletter, please contact
Lola Rasminsky, Director, at 416-961-1502, ext. 601 or at
lola@avenueroadartsschool.com.
WINTER UPDATES Please note the following changes to our schedule. For updates to our course calendar throughout the year please check our Web site. FOR KIDS Two-Day Pottery Workshop • Joni Moriyama Young Anthropologists • Christa Rowley Pottery • Diane Hamilton FOR ADULTS Adv. Botanical Watercolour • Pamela Stagg
Photography Basics • Iza Mokrosz Ceramics • Joni Moriyama
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Faculty Profile Pamela Stagg
Nothing short of a celebrity in the Botanical Painting world, Pamela Stagg is actually a relative newcomer to this tradition-laden medium. Coming across a hidden talent at a workshop at Toronto's Civic Garden Centre in 1987, her first solo show came only a short time later in 1989, and in the same year three of her works were acquired by North America's most important collection of botanical art. By 1991, she was awarded the world's top prize for botanical illustration, the Royal Horticultural Society Gold Medal. An instructor in both Beginning and Advanced Botanical Watercolour at the Arts School, Pamela has an almost cult-like following among her students, who come back to study with her year after year. They feel fortunate to work closely with a leader in the field, whose paintings are exhibited around the world, and who was recently commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to design the Trillium Coin for the prestigious Pure Gold Coin series. To Pamela Stagg, Botanical painting is an exact art: "The human eye picks up more detail than a photograph." She warns however that you cannot rush, should you want to catch all that detail. Each flower should be seen as a "blank piece of paper," recreated petal by petal until completion. Pamela's book Roses: A Celebration, published by Northpoint Press in the Fall of 2003, contains more than thirty of her original paintings. It is available in major bookstores in Canada, the US and UK.
Holiday Schedule All classes end the week of Dec. 15-20 Office Hours When Classes Resume
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This
past November, the Arts School collaborated with art supplier Loomis
Art Store at the One of a Kind Show and Sale. Ongoing art
classes were given for children visiting the show by Avenue Road Arts
School instructors. Materials and space were provided by Loomis. The
children enjoyed creating 2-D and 3-D projects so much that many of
them stayed for two classes — some even stayed for three! They
were all totally engrossed in their work and left the hour-long sessions
beaming with pride at what they had created.
There
is a funny contradiction in the work of Botanical Painting. On the one
hand it is concrete and exact, described by the Royal Horticultural
Society as having "absolute accuracy as to colour and form."
On the other hand, it is an ephemeral, fleeting art whose subjects can't
possibly last as long as it takes to execute their portrait. When you
speak to Botanical Watercolours instructor Pamela Stagg, you sense a
real excitement in that challenge. 
