TORONTO SCHOOL OF ART
fosters the inherent capabilities of its students through an education model that revolves around artists teaching artists to help them make their mark.
- TSA is the city's longest-running independent art school. Enrol in a course and enjoy:
- Small class sizes
- Individual attention and guidance from faculty
- Free Open Studio sessions for current students to work independently outside of class time (contact the office to confirm studio availability)
- Student locker rentals
- Central location at Queen and Bathurst
- Our new home at 24 Ryerson Avenue will be fully accessible
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Warm Up Your Creativity Everyday this Winter Term
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WINTEREARLYBIRD Discount
Use the promo code
WINTEREARLYBIRD
to save 10% on tuition now through
Friday, December 14
!
How to redeem a promotional code discount:
Visit
tsa-art.com
to browse for courses. Click on the register button per course and enjoy our shopping cart check-out process. Click on the cart icon at the top of the page to proceed with payment.
See the cart summary section on the right-hand side and
Promo code - Please validate your promo code here
. Type-in the promo code:
WINTEREARLYBIRD
in the text box and click
validate
. You will see the subtotal adjust with a note that a discount has been applied.
Promotional codes must be redeemed at the time of purchase as part of the offer. Discounts are not available once registration has been processed. If you would like to register via phone please indicate that you'd like to use the discount.
Promotional codes are non-transferable. TSA reserves the right to modify or cancel promotions at any time.
Feel free to contact the office for registration assistance: 416.504.7910 |
[email protected]
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What's New This Winter
Saturday course times
have been slightly adjusted to:
9:30am-12:30pm
and
1:30pm-4:30pm
.
Evening courses
will now have two major time frames:
6pm-9pm
and
6:30pm-9:30pm
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New Faculty: Sabine Spare
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Sabine Spare is a Toronto-based artist and designer. After working in the costume industry for several years, she branched off and founded her design studio, Spare Label in 2017. Through Spare Label, Sabine has worked on a variety of brand collaborations including the Drake hotel, the Drake General Store, Merrill House, Souvenir and Studio Joj.
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Motivated by sustainable and unconventional approaches to textiles and fashion, Spare uses a variety of surface design and couture techniques in her work. Spare investigates the reciprocity between hand and machine, and translates her material-based practice through the lens of photography, digital design and video. Spare questions the role of haptic experiences and material value in a screen dominated culture. She is inspired by a wabi-sabi aesthetic and emphasizes a process-based approach to making.
Sabine is currently an Artist-In-Residence at Harbourfront Centre in the Textiles studio. Sabine’s work for Spare Label has been featured in British Vogue, Atlas Magazine, Trend Hunter Luxury, Insider Art, the Kit, Toronto Life, and Gracie Carroll, to name a few. Sabine has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Toronto.
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Faculty Exhibitions
Amanda McCavour
The Rich Interior Life: Group Exhibition,
Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, Edmonton, AB
September 7, 2018 – December 2, 2018
This is a group exhibition featuring work by three women, 2 from Alberta and one from Eastern Canada; Amanda McCavour (Toronto), Eileen Murray (Brooks, AB) and Linda Craddock (Calgary).
The domestic interior is a personal reflection of the harmony and spirit that resides within our interior life. It is where we the place the things that are important to us: family, life, love and laughter. How we choose to furnish our lives is a reflection of how we see ourselves. The artists within the exhibition have chosen the interior as a metaphorical subject that connects the material world to our unconscious mind. Through memory and nostalgia we can connect with the past and the spirit of familial history that lives within The Rich Interior Life.
SEATED: Group Exhibition
, Alberta Craft Council Feature Gallery, Edmonton, AB
September 1- December 24, 2018
Whether it’s a majestic throne or a humble stool, what we sit on has undergone a rigorous design process and is an expression of its creator. Aesthetics, scale, style, materials, and proportions are just a few of the considerations taken when creating traditional, contemporary, or re-imagined seating objects.
SEATED
features a diverse range of work created by 16 Fine Craft artists from across Canada. From stools, chairs, and benches that are created by master woodworkers all the way to unexpected fold formed copper and enamel metal work, this exhibition explores the theme of seating objects in clever and unexpected ways.
LOST THREAD: Group Exhibition,
Touchstones Nelson Museum of Art and History,Nelson, British Columbia
November 10, 2018 - February 24, 2019
Philip Hare, Bettina Matzkuhn, Amanda McCavour, Sylvie Roussel-Janssens, Wendy Toogood, Anna Torma, Matthew Varey, Angelika Werth and Robin Wiltse (Artist-in-Residence)
This group exhibition brings together several regional, provincial and National artists who create on the forefront of contemporary textiles in Canada and are practicing in respective spaces that push the boundaries between craft/art, and the historical/contemporary in relevant and intriguing ways.
Rebecca Jane Houston
Over Our Heads,
Ripley's Aquarium, Toronto, ON
Twelve-thousand bottles strung together, surrounding a canoe, now hangs above all those that walk through Ripley's aquarium in downtown Toronto.
"I hope that they see the canoe being overwhelmed by the plastic, and recognize the sheer volume of the challenge. And that every bottle we buy contributes to that challenge," says Rebecca Jane Houston.
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TSA OPEN HOUSE: You're Invited
When : Saturday December 8, 11AM-3PM
Where : 980 Dufferin Street, 2nd Floor
Join us next month on the very last day of classes,
Saturday December 8, 11AM-3pm
, for our Annual Open House! As many of you know this will be our
last open house in our current location at the Kent School building in Bloordale. In January, for our Winter term, we will be fully relocated to 24 Ryerson Avenue.
We would like to take this chance to not only celebrate our time in Bloordale but to say goodbye through good cheer and celebration. This year's open house will feature a student gallery, food and drink and a community give-away table. We also encourage you to add any items you want to donate.
If you are interested in helping us set-up for this event then please contact
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TSA Professional Development
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MICA Visit
MICA is a top ranked fine art and design college in Baltimore. Mica welcomes students from a wide range of experience and backgrounds from over 50 different countries each year to their campus. Kenny from MICA held a talk for interested students for our Portfolio Development class. This was a wonderful opportunity for students to receive information and the support they may need as they go through their college search and application process.
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Portfolio Day 9 at Etobicoke School of Arts (ESA)
Recently, we had the pleasure of meeting the wonderfully talented and ambitious students at ESA for their annual Portfolio Day. The entire school was turned into an art installation where students had their individual set-up. Both national and international art schools were in attendance to meet students to talk about post-secondary opportunities.
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Here is a picture of some of the business cards and creative promotional materials gathered from the day.
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Student Spotlight: Venetia Butler
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At an opening for the paintings of Martha Eleen, a teacher at Toronto School of Art, I met Kate Bishop, a student TSA who soon posted about a painting class starting July. I had been wondering what came after life drawing and if I could use the skills to paint, so I signed up to TSA too.
What I found was a school with a calm and welcoming vibe, logical daytime, evening and Saturday scheduling, and ‘open’ studio time. The teachers are practicing, professional artists who, in addition to imparting facts and fundamentals for successful images, encourage and support personal work and self-expression.
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My first class was
Life Painting with Tom Campbell.
I have repeated the class most semesters, learning something new every time. At the beginning when I brought in used brushes and old paint from long ago, Tom didn’t flinch when he realized my inexperience. He gently said what to bring without assigning an expensive, baffling supply list.
A few weeks after starting painting I cleared the decks of all other media: textiles, watercolours, pastels, coloured pencil, (except digital) to focus on painting with water mixable oil.
Still, my interaction with the work felt stilted and self-conscious. To practice, Kate and I started doing to open studio on Wednesday afternoons. Near where I live, in Kensington Market, weekly a local florist would give the bakery next door a bouquet of seasonal fresh flowers. From photos of the bouquets and using transfer paper I could quickly block the subject onto the canvas to paint, fifteen paintings over a year and a half.
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As a confidence building exercise it was successful, other beginners can bypass this lengthy self taught process by starting with Introduction to Drawing and Introduction to Painting, which I am finally taking now.
This past summer Tom Campbell took several students to Ikaria Greece to paint for two weeks. We met at a hotel in Athens and Tom guided us around local sight including the Acropolis, showed us where to find freppés and to eat as we acclimatized to jetlag. Two days later we flew to the island and drove the serpentine road to the language centre, which would serve as our base. Each of us had a furnished room with a view, we bought and cooked much of our food and most evenings drove to a local taberna for supper. Tom showed us how to transport our gear for flights and day trips. He has been there many times and knows where to look for cultural and rural subjects to paint. He demonstrated landscape painting, ‘en plein air’, and how to apply master and impressionist techniques for composition and colour.
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Tom’s fundamental advice? “Best to just get started.” In addition to being a great teacher and charming host Tom makes excellent scrambled eggs.
Authenticity is the most important artistic value; it will shine from work regardless of the quality of media. Ballpoint on foolscap suits me. I am happy with reclaimed canvases and castoff materials that reduce the "What if I wreck this expensive stuff?" factor. Often the scrounged canvases have flaws, broken or warped and through the finished painting you can see reliefs of the original picture, like vintage or antique things, it adds spirit.
I still do open studio at least once a week at TSA. All my gear is stored in a locker at the school; set up and clean up is automatic. I am currently painting another sentimental series, this time portraits of friends, mostly with their pets. Using a projector I block my photos in on canvas. I try to paint the essence of my lovely people and imagine how my friends see themselves. Most people I know hate having their picture taken and some don’t have mirrors at home. I haven't worked out the best way to show them the work. And I wonder if it will be weird for them to have to have a self-portrait in their home.
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I look forward to the new location of Toronto School of Art, in the historic Artist Alliance building, near Queen and Bathurst. There will be more classes, facilities for everyone in a beautiful purpose designed building. I envision space for student shows, critiques from fellow artists and teachers, and the opportunity to meet new arty folk to paint and travel with.
Visit
venetiab.ca
to see pictures of Venetia's trip to Ikaria, drawings, painting and her recent writing.
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Our offices are Open
Monday-Thursday 9AM-6:30PM, Fridays 9AM-5PM
Locker Clearout and Work Pick Up
FINAL DATE: Saturday December 8
Holiday Gift Ideas
TSA Gift Card
Give the gift of a hands-on art course led by a faculty of professional artists. Available for purchase in various denominations to cover full or partial tuition costs.
OPEN LIFE DRAWING is held on Mondays 6-9PM and Fridays 6-9PM
OPEN LIFE PAINTING is held on Fridays 6-9PM
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