Rita-Proctor, Hur, Kang, Kang, and Gold First Anniversary Celebration

For those of you who don't know, I operate out of a fantastic studio up on the sixth floor of an old old building. There are four of us in the space right now (guess which of the two names above refer to the same person...it's not the two you think).

You need to meet these people and see what they make. Now's your chance! Our studio will be open to the public this Saturday. You should come by and drink hot beverages with us.

Photos and collages by Kang, drawings and paintings by Hur, oils by Rita-Proctor, encaustics by Gold.

What you need to know:

First Anniversary Show
Rita-Proctor, Hur, Kang, Kang, and Gold
Saturday December 12
4pm-7pm
310 Spadina, suite 603

Special guest appearance by Peterson Hamilton!

Hanna's website
Laurie's website

Has a Good Home

This is the last stage of the underpainting of the commission I finished on Saturday. It got whisked away so quickly that I didn't even get a chance to document the final product, so here it is in all it's burnt sienna glory. Encaustic on wood panel, 3'by4'. Happy Birthday Jess!

Lusty Lusty

Hello out there,

I have a couple pieces up at Beverly Owens' space on Queen West, until January 3. There's a lot of interesting work in the show, check it out. At left is my contribution.

Kiss Kiss: The Artist Makes Out With Herself
charcoal, beeswax, oil, on paper mounted on wood

2 panels, each 10'' by 10''

Lust

The first deadly sin

The seven deadly sins project

Over 100 Artists

all work 10” x 10” all work $300

start your collection

Show dates December 3-January 3, 2010.

reception December 5, 7-10pm

www.The Beverly owens project.com

1140 Queen st West (steps from the drake)

CLUTCH in the studio

CLUTCH!

April looks on...in approval?

Desiree working it out

Desiree's collage, in progress

So Saturday was great. I ran a workshop for the lovely ladies of CLUTCH, who get together to explore their identities as young Filipina women living in Toronto in various arty ways. Apparently the encaustic was a welcome break from the exhausting work of movie production ( I don't know...it's sounds kind of cool to me). Desiree and Flerida, and later April and Kristina, came by the studio to do some encaustic collaging. Desiree brought a ton of personal material to incorporate, and was doing a bang up job of bringing it all together: her many homes, the images and objects that connect them, music... Flerida was working more with found photos and quotes, but I have a feeling she'll still end up with something that expresses a totally individual outlook- the images and words she was working with were beautifully strange.

I stole the last photo from Desiree's own blog post, which you can find here. Hopefully they'll send me more photos of the finished collages. That's right guys, I'm talking to you. You better deliver.

Encaustic Workshops in October

I think hot wax is a good companion to cool October weather. So let's say October is officially Wax Awareness month, which I'm celebrating by offering some new classes and workshops.

So many things to choose from:

Full day workshops in encaustic painting and collage (on the weekends).

A Five week course in encaustic painting (during the week, daytime or evening).

Private Classes (whenever it suits you).

If you've already taken an encaustic workshop with me and would like the chance to practice without investing in your own equipment, then you'll be happy to hear that I'm now offering open studio time. For a few bucks an hour you can rent the full encaustic set up- hot plate, heat gun, exhaust fan- and work at your own pace.

If you see something you like but the timing doesn't work out, let me know. I'm pretty flexible.

Click on the image above for more info.

All classes take place at Leah Gold's studio in downtown Toronto, which is surrounded by delicious places to go for lunch. That's important information when deciding what to do with a precious Sunday afternoon.

Two beautiful days in Trinity Bellwoods

The art fair this weekend was a lot of fun. I really appreciated all the kind words, and I especially appreciated the man who stopped by and stayed for a good ten minutes just to enjoy looking at the work. Thanks to everyone who purchased work for giving good homes to my creations.

I'll be sending out an e mail shortly with information on upcoming encaustic workshops. If you'd like to be added to that list, just shoot me an e mail at leahfgold@gmail.com.

Queen West Art Crawl

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

I'll have a booth there this weekend.

September 19 and 20
11am to 6pm
Trinity Bellwoods Park
Queen and Crawford.

Many Many artists will be there. But only one Leah Gold, so make sure to come see my tent.

summer sketching overload

Sketches from Portland and Vancouver. and maybe one from Toronto.
Thank you to the many people who showed me amazing hospitality from Florida to Oregon to BC. You know that my door is always open.

Now that I'm back in Toronto, I'm working on getting the studio fully outfitted for encaustic classes, gearing up to start some new paintings, and thinking about doing some ink illustrations of the things that grab me each day at 310 Spadina. I spend every day in that building and it never ceases to amaze me how much activity fits into that place.

I read an article in the New Yorker today about how solitary confinement makes prisoners and monkeys (two great populations for psychological studies, apparently) go insane. Is that the unavoidable fate of the artist? Now you know why I'm always trying to get you to stop by the studio.

Sarah neither working nor eating Burger King. must mean the academy already ended.

An awesome drawing of me by Vanessa.

Waiting for my connection at LAX

Sam's kitchen and one of the many old movie marquees in portland.
With a tiny New Zealand orchid glued in, courtesy of Eric.

Boats at the Granville Island Marina.
This guy, a career fisherman about to head out to catch some crabs, offered to help me get started in "direct marketing". I think that means pyramid scheme. Count me in!


Sunbathing at the nude beach. The best part about Wreck is that all the vendors are naked too, so you're bound to have a nude dude with a cooler over his shoulder murmur softly into your ear: "jaggermeister, jaggerbombs, ice cold beer, marijuana".
Not that that's unusual for me.

Sketchbook Pages

Some pages from the Illustration Academy. We don't get out much here, so mostly I sit in one of three rooms and draw the other people sitting in the room. But what lovely people they are.

My giant head

before I came to the Illustration Academy I was working on this double portrait of Jeff and myself. encaustic on birch panel, about 3.5 feet high.

New Blog Time

Thought I'd simplify things and get a blog with the same(ish) address as my website. 

This guy was in the New York Times today. I really like his drawings of dancers in rehearsal.