A Decade of Painting: 1995-2005, Moira Clark, XEXE Gallery, 624 Richmond Street, Toronto, August 25 to September 17, 2005

Intimate Display, Jennifer Chin, Norfolk Arts Centre, Simcoe, September 10 to November 25, 2005, Artist Talk: October 26 at 7:00 pm

Affordable Art Fair, Sadko Hadzihasanovic, with Kunst Hause Santa Fe, New York, October 2005

Balkan Art International Triennial, Sadko Hadzihasanovic, Novi S'ad, Serbia, October 2005

"Mom, How Come You Gave My Diary Away to Goodwill?" Sweet Sixteen Project, Cake Collective, MT Lawlor, Pleasure Dome Film Commission, Toronto, December 2005

Wright's: Artist's Offerings to their Patrons, Martha Johnson (first international artist included), Jacksonville, Florida, November 2005

If you are interested in submitting your artwork for consideration for the cover of the 2006-2007 ARAS brochure, please come to the school office with your image.

Why would kids attending a Toronto Symphony Orchestra family concert spend their intermission making polar bear rod puppets, story pole art or decorating graffiti walls?

TSO has invited the Avenue Road Arts School to design and facilitate pre-concert and intermission activities for a special family Christmas concert, on Sunday, December 11th at Roy Thomson Hall.

Composer/Conductor Robert Kapilow has set two wellknown children's holiday stories to music – Chris Van Allsburg's Christmas story The Polar Express and Michael Rosen's Elijah's Angel. The holiday concert will include a Christmas carol sing-along and an extended intermission where children will participate in arts activities related to the stories.

While this is ARAS's first time working with the TSO, it has collaborated in the past with the CBC on special programming in the Barbara Frum Atrium and with the Hospital for Sick Children on a full-day project. Most recently, ARAS provided art activities at the Clean Air Partnership Smog Summit hosted by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment at Harbourfront Centre. For more information, keep your eyes on the Upcoming Events portion of our site or the TSO website at www.tso.on.ca.

The school has received many compliments on the cover of this year's brochure. The image conveys the sense of travelling forward into an unknown horizon, rich with possibilities. We considered this a wonderful metaphor for what happens when people engage in taking a class at the Arts School.

The cover is taken from Kim Galligan's painting Inese, the whole of which is pictured to the left. Kim met and became friends with the real Inese at one of her art classes at the school. They continue to paint together in Daniel Hughes' Advanced Landscape Painting class. Kim has been studying painting at ARAS for the past five years. "I can't imagine my life without art," says Kim. "I love the feeling of being transported to a different world and feeling so completely immersed that you think of nothing else."

Kim came from the world of fashion – having worked for years in retail and as a sales representative for Calvin Klein and other designers – before having her children. Kim's daughter Baye was a student at the school from 1996 until 2001. She would come home from her classes at the school with inspiring creations. Her daughter's comments, along with the good word of mouth she'd heard about ARAS, motivated her to sign up for classes at the school.

Kim's painting was one of many on display at the Art School's booth at the Toronto Art Expo which took place at the Metro Convention Centre in March.