Doreen Balabanoff and Mimi Gellman co-organised the trip to Canada (to the part of Canada we were living in, southwestern Ontario). We arranged a curated exhibition at Material Matters, a well-known glass gallery in the heart of Toronto, with the theme and title Sense of Place.
Following the excitement of our opening reception, we began our travels across Ontario in two vans, visiting artworks and galleries en route to the Lake Huron home/studio of Doreen and patner/fellow glass artist Stuart Reid. We had a day at the beach, and then took a route north to the nearest entry to Algonquin, where we spent the day canoeing with some wonderful guides. And then we headed east, stopping along the way to visit a wolf sanctuary, and do a walk in the treetops of an ancient oak forest, where we spent the night. We saw the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, and then visited the nearby historic mill town of Almonte, where we stayed in a ‘typical’ stone house Bed and Breakfast along the river, and gave a lecture at a lovely gallery in an old mill. We visited artists’ studios in the countryside, and one of our last stops was to see the Peterborough indigenous rock drawings, a favourite experience of many in the group. We had a wonderful visit and dinner with Judith and Viktor Tinkl, in Uxbridge, at their renown home/studios about an hour and a half east of Toronto, as our last adventure. On the last day we returned to the Toronto gallery to enjoy extended viewing and discussion of our works with one another.
-Doreen Balanaboff