Forced to choose testosterone over tempra this weekend

 

 

This week’s Hot Home Products column features an online site that sells hand-painted reproductions of works by old masters. I find that interesting for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into now (would it kill you to buy a paper on Saturday?)

If original art is more your thing, get yourself down to the Artist Project event  running from March 3 to 6 at the Queen Elizabeth Building at Exhibition Place. You’ll see works by over 200 independent artists, such as Montreal-based Janice Taylor, who did the mixed media piece above and Russell Brohier, whose photograph of an under-loved classroom is also shown above.

There will also be a slew of other features, including UNTAPPED, an exhibition of 25 emerging or self-taught  artists, works by photographers using 3D technology and a competition of works based on the theme of lemons (yes, the fruit).  As part of an Art Chats series, art writer and educator Betty Ann Jordan will tell you everything you always wanted to know about abstract art but were afraid to ask, and Melony Ward, publisher of Canadian Art magazine will host a panel that looks at the state of art in Canada. (No word yet as to whether Rob Stop the GravyTrain ^TM Ford will attend this one, but my guess is not.) Installation Alley will showcase large-scale sculpture and conceptual art, while a Video Art Wall will introduce work by digital media artists.

If my son didn’t have hockey play-offs this weekend, this is where I’d be. Instead, I’ll be the mom screaming “play nicely!” while testosterone-fuelled 15-year-olds smash into each other. Which is, in its own way I suppose, a kind of performance art. But at least Art Project attendees won’t have to watch psychotic parents of artists projecting their own long-lost hopes on their kids, and nobody will be carted off with a concussion. We hope.