February 1 – 12, 2012
Opening : Thursday, February 2, 6 – 10 p.m.
Propeller Centre for Visual Arts
984 Queen St. W.
T: 416.504.7142
www.propellerctr.com
Hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 6p.m., Sun 12-5 p.m.
A Juried Exhibition of Work by Past & Present Teachers from the Toronto District School Board
Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts is an artist run centre on Queen Street West in the heart of the Gallery District in downtown Toronto. Founded by students from the Ontario College of Art in 1996 to help art students propel their career into the art world, Propeller has been a welcome site for students from Universities, Colleges and Secondary schools to showcase their work alongside professional artists from the collective, whose mandate includes guiding emerging artists through the various stages of their career paths. To date, Propeller has juried and shown the work of students from Ryerson, OCADU, York, Queens.Toronto School of Art as well as the Claude Watson School for the Arts at Earl Haig.
One of my longtime wishes as a member of Propeller and as a Visual Arts teacher with the TDSB, recently retired, has been to organize such a juried exhibition by staff members of the Toronto District School Board as an acknowledgement and appreciation for their tremendous work with and dedication, encouragement and inspiration to their students. Many TDSB teachers in the elementary and secondary panels are themselves artists, trained in art colleges and universities. This show will demonstrate their talents and creativity for the whole city of Toronto, to my knowledge the first ever to take place in a professional gallery.
Above all, this exhibition will give TDSB teachers the opportunity to not only share their talents with their colleagues and the general public but also with their students; it will give instructors the chance to take the students down to see the work or to encourage the senior students to go see and review the exhibition on their own. This show is designed to be an excellent learning experience for all.