Sarah Gaby-Trotz's
LEVITY AND GRAVITY (1)
This work explores themes of both lightness, weightiness and entanglement as explored through felt and
found objects. It has been built outdoors on Wards Island over a series of days, and has been influenced by materials sourced from the island. Island rocks were cast using wet felting techniques, allowing for the exploration of the weight of rocks through the lightness of felt.
Sarah Gaby-Trotz is a Toronto based artist, chef and general creative spirit. Drawn to the warmth and vibrancy of wool one cold winter living in the Kootenays, Sarah began to experiment with felt. Returning to Ontario, Sarah continued to explore her interest in felt making at Haliburton School of the Arts. She has exhibited her work at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition as well as the One of a Kind Show in Toronto. Sarah has also assisted Alice Norton with wigs for Video Cabaret, as well as body painting for Red Sky Performance. Sarah is very happy to return to Wards Island, where she recently lived for 4 years, to be part of Rogue Wave 2020.
Instagram: @herbandhomestead
Mitchell Fenton BRING ON THE NEXT WAVE! (2A)
This installation is a lighthearted rearrangement of park amenities reflecting on the year 2020. Park lawn chairs are Covid-19 spaced and high-water resistant with a ring of sandbags around them. Visitors are welcome to enjoy the view from the chairs and perhaps imagine they are flying in formation over Toronto like the Snowbirds!
Mitchell Fenton GALLERY BOX (2B)
The mini gallery came about during the Covid-19 shutdown as a way of showcasing art to neighbours and Island visitors. Work changes regularly and can be seen at 27 Third St, Wards Island, in person or followed on Instagram @fenton_gallery.
Mitchell Fenton and family are long time Island residents. His partner, Karen, is involved in all the art projects including moving sandbags for this year's installation! Mitch is a professional artist who has participated in all the Rogue Wave art shows.
Kathleen Doody WITH THE FLOW (3A, 3B, 3C, 3D)
For over ten years Kathleen Doody (3) has been creating pebble mosaics in her studio on Toronto Island, Canada. Many of the pebbles used in the mosaics are collected from local Lake Ontario beaches. She has commissions installed in private gardens and public spaces both locally and internationally.
After the floods of 2018, cisterns were dug into various locations on the Island. She created the first of four ‘rogue’ sewer grate mosaics for Rogue Wave 2018, culminating with her With the Flow RW 2020 installation.
Pope/Cullen PANDEMIC CHARM (4)
(Inkjet print on corrugated plastic board; 47.5 cm x 61 cm.)
Pandemic Charm is an adaptation of the Abracadabra charm, used in the Roman Empire (c. 300 CE), and during the plague in seventeenth century London. It is made in expectation of a “second wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic, naming the virus, and "reducing" it by conforming it to the inverted-triangle format.
It is printed on a corrugated substrate, used by the City for its pandemic-related information panels, and mounted on the front door of the Ward’s Island Association clubhouse. Our Pandemic Charm is an experiment with popular magic, as protection for the community against the virus. It is also a reminder that our belief in the power of words over material reality is being tested to breaking point by the pandemic.
PopeCullen is a collaboration between artists Simon Pope & Sarah Cullen. We have been working together since 2008, and our recent work incorporates our common interests in participatory approaches to art, intergenerational collaboration, and in “ecological thinking”. This means that we aim to acknowledge the importance of a range of social relationships in our art practice, such as those in our family life with our children, and in the new kinships and communities that our work produces for us and for others. Individually our work encompasses participatory research-creation approaches to “more than human” forms of community (Pope) and the inclusion of children and caregivers in the production of art and craft (Cullen). We live on Menecing, (also known as the Toronto Islands). More info at bit.ly/popecullen.
Bruce Smith THE ANATOMY OF FEAR (5)
Bruce Smith, artist, geologist, teacher, plumber, welder and gas fitter lives on Ward's Island, Toronto. He put these eclectic skills together to create many unique, magical fire/water sculptures, plumbed with copper and set alight. These huge, magnificent pieces have come to life on Ward's Island and at various venues in the city.
Introduced to sculpting by Welfare State International, an English theatre company, in 1981, photos of his work have appeared in National Geographic Magazine and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
These Dragons were created in 1994 for a show called The Gauntlet of Fire. They reappeared over the years and have found a new life in Rogue Wave 2020.
Fear can give rise to frantic despair and also can lead to progression. This duality is represented in The Anatomy of Fear as the right and left wings. The terrifying right wing consists of the body of the dragon, filled with "Big Bucks" ($): a bat wing coloured red to indicate hysteria and disruption. A contemporary analogy of this wing is the denial of global warming and refusal to engage in carbon emission reduction programs. The benign left wing is filled with common sense "c", coloured environmentally-friendly green with shape derived from a dove.
Kathleen McDonnel SWIM HOME (6)
Kathleen McDonnell is a writer, musician and cold-water swimmer who lives on Ward’s Island. Swim Home, a short video made for Luminato 2020, Toronto, features her swimming off Ward’s Beach in March 2018, with a soundtrack by kith&kin, a vocal trio made up of Kathleen and her daughters Martha and Ivy Mairi. Swim Home is also the title of her new non-fiction book, about an 18th-century wild child who also loved the water. The video will play on a continuous loop on weekends and some weekdays during Rogue Wave, and copies of her book will be available for purchase and online ordering.
Alastair Dickson BRUTISH MUSEUM (7)
The BRUTISH MUSEUM (7) by sculptor Alastair Dickson provides a small, outdoor gallery space to showcase his quirky, irreverent and sometimes macabre sculptures.
Alastair has had a studio space at Artscape Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island since it was opened in 1999. Born in Scotland, he has called the Island home for over half his life. Using primarily well-used and found objects, he works and twists them to fit his visions.
Gera Dillon's CAUGHT IN THE NET OF TIME (8)
“This installation is a playful expression of inexorably slow entropy using artefacts and tools of no other use. The rust is history.
As an imagist-at-large I’ve used mainly photography as a means to capture and retain two-dimensional details of the BIG PICTURE that is Life on Earth.
As if that task alone were not enough, I also collect many other things … known as “objects of my affliction”. Over the years some items in this treasure trove have been repurposed and shaped into art of some sort.
As a pandemic project running from April 10 to August 13, 2020 I produced a serialized “exhibition” of weekly mailings. Each image and caption dealt with some aspect of this viral scourge: Introspection, Escapism, Time Distortion, Superstition, Isolation, News Overload, Economic Disparity, etc.
The method I used was desk-top photos of collaged objects repurposed as symbols. Perhaps not coincidentally, I used heavy rust for my April 22 mailing on the theme of Wishful Thinking. Its title was Tough Spring Ends Well.” Instagram: @gereye2
Barbara Klunder TURTLE SOUL (9)
Barbara Klunder is an award-winning designer, illustrator and textile artist from Toronto. She has also designed 4 fonts, published two children’s books with Anansi, among others. She has won the Life Time Achievement Award granted by the Art Directors' Club of Canada, and has had museum shows of all of her media. Paper-Cuts and Embroideries are her favourites in the last few years.
If the Island spiders don’t overtake her GalleryBox, you will see a framed paper-cut, Turtle Soul, which reflects the devastating of loss of millions of animals in these world-wide fires.
Luisa Milan déjà vu ON THE LINE (10)
Luisa Milan’s work is mainly inspired by the landscape of Toronto Island where she lives. One of her activities has been a series of fibre installation pieces for Rogue Wave, starting with the first one in 1998. These works drew upon the theme of laundry, with all that it represents, and were located within that landscape.
Déjà vu ON THE LINE is a recreation of my first Rogue Wave piece. I want to re-create this work, acknowledging Indigenous peoples, and photo documenting the process. It is a collaboration between myself and the elements that she wants to experience again.
Description: 7 m of white cotton fabric hung on a line between two trees with clothes pegs. The fabric is inscribed with the text of the Land Acknowledgement - City of Toronto and embroidered freehand with a sewing machine.
Rick Simon and Éamon Harrington-Bonar CIRCULAR WITH ROBOT (11)
Designer Rick/Simon has been with Coach House Press/Printing, off and on, since 1967. He is an associate with a few art collectives, creating video and print design with VideoCabaret; costume design, percussion and stilt dancing with Shadowland on the Toronto Islands; and production design and performance with Calico Company in Trinidad & Tobago and Art Acts in Cleveland, Ohio.
Éamon HHB is a generous five-year-old who, in addition to collecting sticks & rocks, began to find and bring Rick metal objects that he described as parts for his robot. At some point he had the necessary elements ready for help with assembly. Although Éamon was critical of Rick’s use of zip-ties instead of screws, he approved of the piece and began to add finishing accessories . . .
Lori Dell GALLERY BOX (12)
Lori Dell is a visual artist best known for her emotionally charged, large concept paintings, often described as bold, spiritual, and meditative.
For Rogue Wave 2020 she is presenting a changing selection of paintings in her Gallery box installation space.
Betsy Canfield and Nathan Lister NATURE BALANCE (13)
Glass and ceramic multi media piece created by Betsy Canfield and N. Lister.
Life is balance, spider, fly, bee, nectar, earth, air. All must be held in harmonic balance.
Gaye Jackson ERRATIC REVISITED (14)
Toronto artist Gaye Jackson has been creating photographic work about environment history for over 30 years.
Gaye Jackson’s work ERRATIC REVISITED is from series of photographs of “erratics” – rocks moved by glaciers that once covered most of North America and that often appear out-of-place within their surroundings. The two images in Rogue Wave are exhibited in the front windows of the artist’s home. One image is of the first erratic that she photographed in 2011; the second image is a composite of colour correction test strips of rock images for an exhibition cancelled because of Covid-19.
Warren Hoselton TREEveristy (15)
Toronto Island Parks Supervisor Warren Hoselton has been a tree lover and supporter for a very long time. He is also known as his alter-ego Professor Elwood Pricklethorn, a self-professed arbor-fessor and ISA Certified Arborist. He can be found on Facebook under that name.
“Did you know that the trees in our communities and their ancestors have been promoting diversity for approximately 270 million years? Diversity is nothing new to trees, so let’s be like a tree. Let’s branch out and set some roots amongst our diverse neighbours!” – Warren/Pricklethorn Visit TREEveristy (15) at
Facebook: professorpricklethorn
Laura Shepherd MINI GALLERY (16)
Laura Shepherd has lived on Toronto Island since 1993. Along with working as a production artist/designer and director in broadcast animation for 28 years, she joined the Island collective ‘L’ecole des faux arts’ in 1995 and has been part of their shared studio space at Artscape Gibraltar Point since 2012. Living and working on the shores of Lake Ontario, she is drawn to the riveting effects of weather and light, the island, the city, the lake and sky.
Laura is a part of the growing collective of outdoor Island artist mini galleries, presenting a changing offering of recent work in scratchboard, experiments with gouache, and works from her archives. Weather permitting, during the Rogue Wave 2020 show she will be onsite Sunday afternoons in front of 28 Lakeshore Avenue, Ward’s Island.
Instagram: @laurashepherd.art
Merle Harley SUN / SNAKE (17)
A snake muses on the changing season from its meadow habitat of swamp and snake grass.
Merle Harley works slowly, makes soft things and befriends snakes. A chaos creature with too many projects and no fixed medium. Catch them on the shoreline as they zip back and forth between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Ontario.
Facebook: Merle Harley, Instagram: @merles_world
Tanya Golden MIGRATION (18)
I am a self-taught artist, a t-shirt artist, an art teacher to children, a painter and an avid gardener.
My piece for Rogue Wave is titled 'Migration' in honour of the monarch butterflies who migrate every year thousands of miles. With that in mind, I would like the viewer to reflect on the many migrant workers and refugees around the world who migrate not by choice but necessity. Each monarch is a fragile migrant. – Tanya Golden
Carol Bigwood ONCE UPON A TIME THIS THING HAPPENED (19)
Carol Bigwood is an academic, author, and artist in many mediums including sculpture, painting, music and installation. She has been participating in Rogue Wave since its inception. Her installations, as well as her academic work, show a keen grounding in the environment and the healing powers of nature.
This work reflects her fascination with the ‘Worldometer’ in the early stages of Covid, watching the numbers and the new columns of data that are added as the information is gathered. We are living through a time of important social change, not only in deep human traditions such as the handshake, but also with demands for deep structural change. In particular in terms of social justice as people's lives, formerly unseen, now are becoming visible through the Covid data pouring in. This work looks forward to a time when nature has moved on, and Covid is a dream of something that once happened and has become but a vague memory.
Irina Scestakowich A PLACE WE CANNOT SEEM TO GET TO (20)
A PLACE WE CANNOT SEEM TO GET TO was originally painted in Irina's
studio during the shutdown. "Not being able to get to my
favourite hangout Willow Grove this summer, I have placed myself and my granddaughter, Heron, in the grove in an imaginary way. This reprint of the original 4’ x 5’ painting is hugging a tree.”–Irina Schestakowich
Mai Aru ROCKS & OCEAN, ESALEN, BIG SUR (21)
After a lifelong career designing & making clothing & painting when she could, in 2016 Mai Aru retired and moved to the Island. She is now a full-time painter, a lifelong dream.
Rocks & Ocean, oil on canvas 10"x12"
I painted this from a pastel that I did, sitting on the rocks, watching the waves crash, bathed in sunshine, at Esalen, Big Sur. Painting this took me back to that day.
Gary Smith USED UP, RECYCLED, GOOD OR BAD, BUT STILL ART (AND HARD TO THROW AWAY) (22)
According to artist Gary Smith, the title of his Rogue Wave 2020 work: Used UP, Recycled, GOOD or BAD, but still ART (and hard to throw away) refers both to the art and to himself.
Shadowland Theatre BIG TROUBLE (23)
Founded in 1984 on Toronto Island, Shadowland creates original theatre that entertains, engages, and inspires people to interact positively with each other and their environments. The company’s distinctive theatrical vocabulary includes puppetry, mask, stilt-dance, spectacle arts, fire and live music. Shadowland animates streets, parks and outdoor spaces and collaborates with urban and rural communities to celebrate local stories and Canadian histories. Artistic directors are Anne Barber and Brad Harley .
In these challenging times, Big Trouble embodies your fears and purges your anxieties. It is based on the Mexican papier mâché Judas figures that were traditionally filled with fireworks and set alight as cathartic relief. This figure was originally displayed at the AGO in 2012 as part of the Frida and Diego exhibition.
Toronto Island Residents’ Housing Co-op
This Encampment is a plea for universal affordable housing to be part of Toronto's Green Recovery.
Participants are Island Co-op Housing Advocates: Ellen Allen, Ariel Civar, Ivy Mairi Farquhar-McDonnell, Sarah Miller, Eliza Moore, Jane Davidson Neville, and Eric Smiley.
Brad Harley THE NEXT TREE (25)
Mr. Harley is a visual art/theatre specialist who designs, builds and paints: masks, puppets, art objects and toys.
The Next Tree is a sign intended to help patrons locate the next available woody herbaceous growth. Thank you.
Leida Englar ISLAND SHOPPER COVID-19 STYLE (26)
"Island Shopper Covid-19 Style" is a sculptural piece celebrating the Kindness and Generosity of many Islanders who shopped for their friends and neighbours during the Covid-19 shutdown, and continue to do so.
GROYNE is an ongoing series of video and still images photographed over many years by Toronto photographer April Hickox. Groynes run perpendicular to shorelines, capturing sand and preventing erosion. The cement groyne documented here extends into Lake Ontario from Centre Island, Toronto.
The artist has been recording this landmark for over 20 years and has watched as it has eroded with high water and winter ice. The work reflects her interest in the constant change in the landscape, and from the climate crisis, and the dance we have with the elements. The installation shows a grid of images of the groyne: eight photos taken over the years recording high and low water. It is mounted on a plaque in the location where the images were shot.
Sandy Krzyzanowski RAG & BONE, an Island Stick Structure (28)
RAG AND BONE, while supporting beans, squash and tomatoes, is tied with rag strips and alive with colourful Shadowland Theatre cast-offs. Movement, pattern and rhythm bring carnival to the allotment garden!
Sandy Krzyzanowski has lived and worked on the Island since 1972. Natural dyes, fabric and clothing, teaching and gardening, music, dance and community have kept her busy.
Claudette Abrams MIND FIELDS (29)
MIND FIELDS is a series of images documenting island activations and happenings, rotated at intervals for display in a gallery vitrine. Centred on creative and subjective ways of being present in a place, artworks explore states of balance between concentrated immersion and mindful openness. Functioning as both focus objects and casual points of reprieve, these images seek to acquaint visitors with the spirit of the island community, history and surrounds.
