Artist Talk and The Sunshine Eaters at The Onsite Gallery

My friend Meghan and I enjoyed a rare "midday-on-a-weekday" outing last week, when we went to OCAD University (Toronto's School of Art and Design), to hear a talk given by Meghan's favourite artist, Shary Boyle.

The Lana Del Rey Concert in Toronto

This story begins back on the 7th of December, when I received an envelope from my friend Andrea in the mail.Nick was watching me as I opened it, and when tears of joy sprang to my eyes, he said, "She got you good!"Inside was a cute handmade Christmas card, enclosing a ticket to see one of my favourite singer/songwriters, Lana Del Rey.Unbeknownst to me, these two had had secret discussions about this excellent surprise, as Andrea had to make sure that I didn't already have a ticket and that I would be in town on the night of the show. During their conversation, Nick asked her to grab him a ticket too, so we could all go together.

New Art Within the Old : Blank Canvas joins Florine Stettheimer at the AGO

My friends Meghan, Julie, Pamela and I saw a really good performance at the AGO, a week ago Friday. It was held right within the Florine Stettheimer exhibition, (which is on temporary display until this Sunday, January 28th. I previously wrote about this beautiful show, featuring the work of an American painter, designer, Jazz Age saloniste and poet, in this post.)

"Stettheimer Salon : Give Me a Beat", curated by Just John from Blank Canvas Gallery, was described as : "Using Poetry, Live Music & Dance to showcase a contemporary response to Stettheimer salon, the evening will explore the modern art atmosphere and its many layers, leaving the audience lost in rhythm & gaze."

There was live poetry recitation, music, and dance, presented by a talented group of young Toronto artists.

There was a stage/projector area set up in the middle of space, where visitors watched a film-loop of a production called "Four Saints in Three Acts", for which Stettheimer had designed the stage and costumes in 1934. This set-up was used as the stage -- while the poets recited, the film-loop played right over them, giving a very cool lighting effect.

There were also dances performed alongside the artwork.

They had an excellent turnout, which, of course, was great. However, the crowd limited my view of the stage area, making it a challenge to get photos of all the performances, so unfortunately, I missed some. (Here is the FB Event posting with a complete list of everyone involved.)

And here's a look at "Salon Stettheimer : Give Me a Beat" ...

Celebrating Friendship at The Broadview Hotel

Hello! As mentioned in my previous post, I commemorated two "friendiversaries" with lovely lady friends recently. Today I'm writing about a celebratory outing with Julie, whom I've now known for 5 years.

Since I'd recently begun keeping this site when we met, (back in 2012 and depicted in this post), longtime readers will have seen our friendship unfold, from first meeting until now. When we met, (while waiting in a line-up ... you never know when/where you'll meet the people you'll know forever!), Julie's daughter Lila was a newborn.

Since then, she and her husband Guy have added a son, James (seen here, here and here) to their sweet family. In fact, during one of our friendiversary dates, she was weeks away from having him (seen here). He's an active little two year old now.

Not only has she been busy with her young family, Julie is also a talented writer, who has released two very well received books since we met (which I posted about here - Tangle and here - Lady Crawford).

Also, she is one of Canada's top knitting bloggers, with her site Knitted Bliss. (While she focuses mostly on knitting, she also includes stories about life and publishes an excellent weekly list of interesting links around the net. So, if you enjoy blogs, hers is a good one to follow.)

With all this going on, it would be understandable if making the time to bond with new friends was put on the back burner. I'm very glad to say that this has not been the case!

To celebrate our five years of friendship, Julie suggested we go to the newly restored Broadview Hotel, and I readily agreed.

Located in Toronto's east end (at Broadview and Queen St. E), this building was erected in 1891. As long as I've lived in the city, I've known it as home of a strip club called Jilly's. Its complete restoration began in 2016, and it reopened last summer. (There's a good story about the details Of the work in this Toronto Star article.)

I'd seen photographs of it and had ridden by on the streetcar, however had yet to see inside.

I booked us a table for the upstairs dining room, called "The Rooftop", and it's a good thing I did. It was jam packed on that Thursday evening. Being winter, it was too cold to go outside, but based on the photos I've seen of their outside deck, it's amazing out there.

Celebrating Friendship : Art, Dinner and Bubbly Wine with Meghan

ass="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38128 blk-brdr" src="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/florine-stettheimer-paintings-at-ago-toronto-exhibition-of-her-work.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480">I'll have to back up a bit with the next two stories I post, as the holidays butted in and occupied all of the blogging time! And, I don't want to just skip posting about these two special nights out, that occurred in November, because they were important celebrations -- "Friendiversaries" with two cherished people, Meghan and Julie.Today, I'll write about a lady-date with Meghan, whom I've known for 8 years now.We met at a workplace, and while we've both moved on from there, the bond we formed, first as colleagues and then as friends, carries on. She's a fun, smart, adventurous and sweet person, and I'm glad to have her in my life.One thing that we first found a mutual interest in is art, so it made sense to include the viewing of some in our get-together. We went to the AGO, where we saw the Guillermo del Toro exhibition for a second time each (I wrote about this show, which has now ended in this post), and three other temporary exhibitions, that were fantastic : The AIMIA / AGO Photography Prize Exhibition, Room for Mystics, featuring the creations of Sandra Meigs, and a retrospective of the work of artist Florene Stettheimer called Painting Poetry.All three of these shows are still on - the Photography Exhibition and Room for Mystics run until this Sunday, Jan 14, and the Florene Stettheimer one is on until January, 28, 2018. All are accessible with regular admission. So, this weekend, would be a perfect time to go to the AGO, especially considering that Toronto weather is forecasted to dip back down well into the negative temperatures! (I apologize for going on and on about our cold weather on these pages, but damn, it has been remarkable this year.)If you happen to go on Friday evening (when hours are extended until 9pm) we might run into one another, as I'll be there with, by coincidence, Meghan and Julie. If you see us, please say hi! It's also open late tonight (Wednesday) and entry is free.Here's a look at these shows ...The AIMIA / AGO Photography Prize Exhibition:This is the 10th Annual competition, open to contemporary photography artists from around the world. The work of the four finalists are on display.Liz Johnson Artur