Mark Siddall Gallery

A long time coming

2011-05-06T11:08:00.005-04:00

September 2010. That was the end of Mark Siddall gallery. Three years young. In part thanks to the introduction of the HST there was just no way to add those taxes to an already lean budget.
The addition of those taxes which now added $500 a month to my current rent, plus plus plus plus could not be passed onto my patrons who bought my art or had printing and framing done. There was no way to increase the prices when there was already so many people out there cutting the price of printing as well. Send your prints jobs off to China and get them delivered cheaper than I could do a test print.
When you are supplying custom framing and custom printing it becomes a waste of ones time and finances when you can go to any store like Walmart, or Sears, or Zellers or a Liquidation Centre to name a few and buy all the “crap” you want. Furniture, frames, household décor made specifically to fall apart and be in your trash in 3 years. All these off shore knock-offs make it impossible for a small business to survive. Then again if that’s what you are proud to own in your home rather than something produced in Canada that will last, then by all means run out and enjoy that disposable furniture and home décor!
I could not make a frame for the cost of buying one at Walmart. A lovely plastic, or MDF reproduction, including the print. All wobbly and already falling apart before you even reach the check out!
I had to let my employees go and basically move out before my life's work was lost.
The condition of the building the gallery was in was either far too humid for the printers and also my archival papers, which also affected the frames and caused them to warp on the walls to the extreme of being too dry. There was no consistency and valuable prints and frames were being destroyed. Many prints were warping inside the conservation framing. A rental increase, the HST hit and the writing on the wall was a short scribble.
I value everyone who came to my gallery to browse or purchase. Whether it was a frame job, or a printing service, to buying one of my own works - you are all appreciated and I'm overjoyed I lived my dream for a short three years. It was a lot of work, it was intense, it was exhaustive, however it was also everything and I loved it.
2010 was a year which exhausted me in ways I couldn't imagine. My father passed away fairly suddenly April 1st. after a brief hospital stay. My business partner was involved in financial problems and the HST was the last straw essentially. I haven't seen any improvements in services come to think of it since the government started racking in that 15% on everything.
At any rate it was a struggle I was loosing, and loosing big. My business partner had to pull out and I couldn't see the continued destruction of my work. I held on tooth and nail until the bitter end. As the end came I shut down emotionally from the events of that year - the loss of my gallery and my father weighing heavily on me. I went through the motions and just kept going further and further away from the public eye.
So, here we are eight months later and I've looked at my website and decided there needs to be some changes. I have closed Maask Group. For all intents and purposes there will not be another gallery any time soon. Not unless there is a miracle.
It's time to dust off 2010 and get back out there. You'll be seeing more of my work soon. I will likely change up the website and make it easier, convenient, and safe to purchase online.
I'm getting back in the game. I just have to figure out the rules.
I thank all of you who supported my work and gallery. They were the most exciting years of my life so far. I would love my work to be in the National Art Gallery. Any ideas to share?

Hats Off to the Soldiers

2009-11-13T13:32:00.003-05:00

I was honoured, recently, to be asked to participate in an event that recognized the brave individuals who make up Canada’s military. The True Patriot Love Foundation raises funds for programs to improve the well-being and morale of Canadian military personnel and their families. This year, one of the ways they sought to do that was through a unique auction.

The foundation asked 100 Canadian visual artists to express their thoughts on what it means to be a soldier today with a standard-issue army helmet as their canvas. How cool is that?

Very intrigued, I looked into the idea and had a helmet at the gallery by four o’clock that afternoon. I only had three days to pull this off, but I was really psyched and so got working on it immediately.

To start, I just let the idea spin in my head, awaiting inspiration. And, as it almost always does, inspiration arrived with abundance.

In my first attempts to make good on it, I tried coating the helmet in red spraypaint as a dramatic backdrop for what I had in mind to follow, but the paint wouldn’t stick and I had to remove all of it with varsol.

Next, I tried to wrap a band around the circumference of the helmet, but the moulded ear areas presented a problem and I had to abandon that plan, too.

In the end, I drew from one of my own photos of a war memorial. A really striking shot of a pair of soldiers, one supporting his injured comrade. I printed it off, shrunk it down and cut out the silhouettes of the men. Painstaking work, that. Initially, I was thinking big and grand, and I went through several trials, but I eventually realized that the best approach was just to be simple. Each one of these is hand cut out and glued to the helmet with framer’s glue. I would have painted it, too, but I just didn’t have the time.

Looking back on the flurry of activity that marked it, now that it’s finally finished, I can say that this project was scary at first because I didn’t think I was going to be able to get across what was in my head. And even when they extended the deadline by a week, I couldn’t shake the pressure that I’d let seep into my soul.

But what I ended up with pleased me very much indeed. I wanted to capture that these soldiers go out together, and that they come back together. That they’re there to support each other and our country. I put a poppy on the crosses with which I lined the back of the helmet, to acknowledge that they don’t all come back. And I called the piece: “Remember the fallen; remember the sacrifice.”

The decorated helmets were auctioned off at an inaugural gala event on Tuesday that was attended by a slew of luminaries, including Justin Trudeau and Don Cherry. Bidding started at $100. I’m still waiting to hear how mine fared, but what an honour, truly, to have played a role in this adventure.

I Wuz Framed

2009-11-05T12:16:00.002-05:00

Ah, the humble frame.

Pity the fools who regard it merely as a way to conceal the edges of a piece of art. As for me, well, I speak to you from inside the swell of frames that occupies this gallery space, and know differently.

Picking the right frame to house a photograph or painting is, as it turns out, almost as much an art as is producing the stuff it surrounds. I’m self-taught on this front, and I can tell you, it ain’t a cakewalk.

Still, as is the case with all artistic pursuits, picking a frame is about listening to your gut more than anything. Not surprisingly, sometimes my gut says different things than the gut of the guy placing the order. And that’s fine. I urge art lovers to reserve a particular part of their bellies for aesthetics, and to hear keenly the messages that bubble up from there.

They need only wander into my gallery and be exposed to the raw materials that would inspire such messages: samples from more than 700 of these beauties crowd my walls and storage nooks. Every type’s represented here, from very contemporary, clean styles to traditional frames with ornate engravings. This year, white frames are coming into vogue, I guess because people are putting more colour on their walls.

Sometimes, depending on the art for which it’s intended, I’ll suggest a framing approach that’s a bit complex, like a double-frame or a double-mat or a three-inch frame. But I mostly keep it simple. More than anything, you want to see the picture, not the frame. Framing is to enhance the image, not overpower it.

There are all sorts of intricacies to the framing industry that your average Joe out there probably doesn’t get. I could spend $17,000 on a mat cutter. And don’t even get me started on glass.

Too late.

Glass, in framing, is critical. I don’t push that point a lot, because buying into it can be expensive, but there are a lot of selling points to glass, like clarity and preservation. The stuff that is really super clear is also really super expensive because they’ve gone through a special process to remove the iron. You can definitely see the difference, but I feel guilty pushing it, because it costs so much. I don’t even charge for normal glass in my frames; just for the premium stuff.

Sometimes, keeping a conscience and running a business can be in direct opposition of each other.

Crypt-ic thinking

2009-10-29T19:23:00.003-04:00

Ah, Cemeteries. They have a way of inspiring grave thoughts.

I remember this one cemetery near Pickering that I visited a long time ago, and immediately felt disturbed in. There was a vibe there, and it wasn’t good. The friend I was with got freaked out, and ran back to the car.

I am what my some people would call “extremely perceptive” (I've been advised to steer clear of the use of the word “psychic”). I told some people a few weeks ago that there was going to be an accident on the 401 with a tractor trailer and that it would lead to an explosion. There was.

I told a woman who works in this building that she had to do something about the tires on her car or there was going to be trouble. She ended up with four flats.

I told our landlord that he was going to be rear-ended on the road. Last week, he was.

I told my loved one he needed to see a doctor, that there was something wrong. He was spared colon cancer because I got him to see a specialist.

Generally, when I tell someone something they look at me like I’m crazy. But I’m not usually wrong. And the more I allow myself to see, the more I see and the faster it comes at me.

It’s this so-called “gift” that’s been behind my agoraphobia, I know. In the thick of it, I was constantly inundated by a maelstrom of feelings and messages and thoughts, just from looking into people’s faces. It can be overwhelming, that. I’ve been trying to put the genie back in the bottle for the longest time.

A long time ago, a guy I used to work with told me he didn’t feel right, but he didn’t know why. He wondered, though, whether it was because of some voodoo goings-on he'd gotten mixed up in when he was a young man in New Orleans. I told him I’d meditate on it, and I did.

I understood, in the vision I had of him swirling in a kind of ground-to-sky cage, that I was there to rescue him. But the more I tried to free the guy, the more resistance there was. And there was another creature there, too, quite foreboding, almost dragon-like.

In the end, I won the battle and yanked this fellow out of his entrapment. But the effort exhausted me and I’ve never felt quite the same since. It makes me wonder if I’d gotten myself too deep into something I didn’t fully understand.

Eventually, I’d like to be able to control this talent, but I really need to think on how.

Sounds like an exercise best conducted in Cemeteries.

Cemeteries Comes to Life

2009-10-22T09:59:00.004-04:00

Well, the show is up and it’s to die for.

After too many sleepless nights and too many strikes against us (our bad luck persisted to the eleventh hour, with our foyer banner not arriving until 5pm on opening night), we have unveiled Cemeteries. With 40 big-ass pieces that have filled my gallery with the sense of macabre, it’s my biggest show yet.

We had a few visitors by on opening night, which was fantastic. Among them was a charming reporter from SNAP Newspapers, who asked me a few questions and took a few shots. I am looking forward to the published results.

More than anything, I love that, with my photographs, I offer new life to things long dead. And I’m not talking about the obvious here, the rotting remnants of humanity that lurk under the earth. I’m talking about the workmanship, the artistry, the care, the reverence that our ancestors invested in their dead with gravesite markers that were so tremendously rich with detail and inspiration. I hope I’ve done them justice with photographs that celebrate once more both the sense of tragedy, and the spirit of hopefulness, that are the strange bedfellows of a cemetery.

For my part, I walk into the gallery now, with its walls lined with spooky, solemn things, and think: Yeah. The place looks dead on.

Jinx!

2009-10-15T17:14:00.005-04:00

I suppose it’s only fitting that we’re finding the soon-to-be-unearthed Cemeteries show to be a bit, um, cursed.

Haunted even, a guy might say.

To start, my massive new fancypants printer is giving me such grief I can’t tell you. The Xerox technicians have been in here constantly, but to no apparent avail. They’ve replaced every part that they can and we’re still not there.

In the meantime, we’ve run dry on paper. We should have gotten 10,000 of these publicity postcards mailed out by now, but had to stop at 7,000 because we burned through all the paper. So much was spoiled by trial and error in this mission to get it right. Every 10 sheets we were adding more toner. And this stuff ain’t cheap!

The service guys are on the brink, they tell me, of declaring the machine a lemon and giving me another one. That or I can call in my satisfaction-guaranteed promise and they’ll replace the printer, no questions asked. I’d rather not go this route, though, given that I’m only allowed to play that card once and then it’s my problem. Either way, I’m pretty disappointed with all of this.

What else? Well, we bought a banner stand recently, to display photography samples inside the gallery, and were delighted when it arrived. But it’s the wrong type. I can’t hang a thing on it.

Eventful didn’t send out the e-mail blast we’d signed on for, so we missed out on that bit of promotional buzz.

It’s so stinking hot in this place I’m sweating my pants off. But even the spectre of a pantless photographer, apparently, isn’t enough to motivate my landlord to adjust the thermostat.

Oh, and on top of everything, I’ve got some kind of cold that’s dragging me seriously down. Aches and pains and stuffiness and ick. I’m not really getting a lot of rest and don’t have the luxury, with the October 21 opening hanging gravely over my head, to spend a couple of days in bed. Instead, I’m just swallowing chicken soup and lozenges, and hoping not to utter the H1N1 label any time soon. But it may come to that. I feel like dreck and I have read that one of the symptoms of the thing is extreme crankiness. Check.

And the net result of all this mess? I’m so far behind on all of my stuff it’s not funny. I haven’t worked on any more than six images out of a total count I hope will be close to 30. The effort required to sort through all of these technical details has left my output level badly fettered and my artistic mojo in tatters.

Curses!

Going Once...

2009-10-02T13:21:00.004-04:00

I may have been around the block a few times, but now I’m going on it.

Some nice folks from the Leslie Group, a benefits consulting firm upstairs in my building, made a few purchases from the gallery recently. All told, I think I sold seven prints to these delightful, insurance-minded individuals, including one, I know, that’s earmarked for an auction.

The Leslie Group regularly contributes a print—Robert Bateman has made the cut in years past—to support the fundraising efforts of a client of theirs. Morguard Investments Ltd., one of Canada’s premier real estate investment advisory and management companies, hosts a fundraising drive every November, to raise money for the United Way. The culminating event of the program is a silent auction and, this year, one of my prints will find its way to the podium.

I’m thrilled to be part of this good deed, and I can’t wait to hear how well my baby performs on the block.

Of paths less traveled

2009-10-01T14:56:00.003-04:00

Here’s the good news.

Months and months after the naysayers first started lobbing their “You’re too far off the beaten track” comments in my new Don Mills’ gallery’s direction, I’m delighted to report that people actually appear to be finding us now. Indeed, they seem to be seeking us out—and appreciating very much the fruits of their efforts.

Case in point was the lovely couple who dropped by here yesterday afternoon, having set aside the invitation they received in the mail two weeks before in anticipation of when they might have a chance to visit. They had lots of positive stuff to say about my work, and some really exciting suggestions of ways I might get my stuff more widely distributed. I was touched and flattered that they took the time to remember me, and to make the trek to my so-called off-the-beaten-track space.

The thing is, we’re not so very off the beaten track, anyway.

I mean, my gallery’s proximity to an art lover’s point of origin is really a matter of perspective. Sure, if you happen to live in a downtown building, or a beet farm near Alliston, or an organic commune near the American border, well, maybe I’m off your beaten path. But what if you live near Fairview Mall? Or the Science Centre? Or the new Shops at Don Mills?

I’d submit that I am very much on the path traveled by these folks, beaten or otherwise.

Sheesh.

Seasons in the Sun

2009-09-24T15:07:00.002-04:00

Autumn’s coming.

I deliver this weighty statement with a mix of emotions. I’ll miss summer as much as the next guy, especially considering how much of this one I spent indoors—minding the gallery, working on my photography at my desk, being an adult. It’s hard to believe my chance to wander the great outdoors under a wash of summer sun has come and gone. Some part of my mind can’t grasp the reality that we’re about to face the chilly onslaught of another winter.

Still, fall has its appeal. I like the coolness of the season, its spirit of fresh chances, the way it comes with a built-in sense of promise. And, of course, the colours can’t be beat.

I’ve been watching the trees and thinking it’s almost time to go to Crawford Lake again. They found out that this west-of-Toronto conservation area was an Indian settlement at one time, and there are longhouses built all around the property that you can explore. Very cool. And then there’s this fantastic boardwalk that they’ve constructed to wrap around the lake where you can go and stroll and forget absolutely your proximity to the snarled and sputtering geography that is the city. I go there with my camera and let my eyes wander.

But it’ll be sad for me to go back this year, I know. In years past, Crawford Lake would be a regular haunt for me and my little Miniature Schnauzer, Zhana. She’d bounce along beside me, burrowing her wet black nose into every scene, and then checking back in with me to share her stories. After more than 17 amazing years together, I had to put my little girl to sleep last October. She pulled me from the depths of agoraphobia. She was my anchor. Truth to tell, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the loss.

We got Lilly, our Doberman Pinscher, in May. I was looking for a breed that would have the least chance of reminding me of Zhana, and so ended up with this 75-lb. hair-shedding, Kleenex-ripping specimen from the other end of the scale. She’s lovely, though, and I’m sure she’ll make great company for me on my Crawford Lake jaunts.

It’s only a matter now of my finding the time to escape my day job long enough to grab my digital and my dog, and launch the lot of us into this brilliant period of seasonal transition.

Winging It

2009-09-18T00:43:00.003-04:00

I can’t believe that the official opening of my latest show, Butterflies, has come and gone (last night was the big night). The affair just flew by. (Not really—I’m just crazy for butterfly metaphors.)

Honestly, I was thrilled with the way the whole thing unfolded. Every time I turned around there was someone new in the space, spellbound in front of one of my framed tributes to this timeless source of natural beauty (or it could be they were biding time until it was socially acceptable to snatch another of our opening-night roast-beef sandwiches). Lots of new signatures were added to my guestbook and lots of new souls were exposed to the Mark Siddall Gallery, unassuming as it is in its off-the-beaten-track post.

I do hope lots more butterfly-lovin’ folks will stir their wings and come by before this flight of fancy draws to a close. The gallery walls will be papered with my images of these fragile lovelies until October 3.

On the Wings of...

2009-09-10T08:15:00.003-04:00

Today, my butterflies take flight.

With the opening of my new show, Butterflies, the walls of my gallery are now brilliantly plastered with all things Lepidoptera—and I couldn’t be more pleased.

I've always wanted to capture on "film" the vibrancy and luminescence of these spectacular creatures. I’m particularly fascinated with the delicacy of their wings and the shape of their bodies. If what I remember from Physics 101 is any good, it’s a bit of a miracle that these curiously proportioned beings can fly at all, let alone with the grace that takes them from flower to flower as it does!

I like the way my gallery feels now, when I push open the double doors and let the ambience wrap itself around me. It’s a nature garden now, overtaken by radio-frequency antennae, corkscrew proboscises and church-window wings.

Most of my shots have natural backdrops, too, which means there’s suddenly a whole lot of flora about the place. Greenery abounds, with the leaves upon which my photographic subjects sit providing extraordinary contrast to the vivid stoppers-by that they host. It’s like we’ve moved next to a butterfly conservatory, and my frames are all windows into their world.

Come have a look.

What All the Flap’s About

2009-09-08T17:08:00.003-04:00

Butterflies are one of those things I’ve always wanted to shoot. They’re colourful, they’re delicate, they’re brilliant. I’m fascinated, actually, with their lives. When you consider the odds of one of these “bugs” actually surviving long enough to become a butterfly, you feel you owe them a certain amount of respect and admiration for having gotten there. After the birds and other critters get through picking them off, it’s a miracle that they’re fluttering around in front of you, so full of life. That’s got to be worth a photograph.

I’ve got butterflies on leaves, butterflies on logs, butterflies hanging off flowers. I even have a pair of butterflies caught in the mating process.

Having said that, it’s no picnic shooting these things.

For one, it’s hard to get the whole butterfly in focus. They’re always flitting around, taking flight just as you’re training your lens on the perfect shot. And just as you snap a shot you think is going to be perfect, you look and realize it’s as blurry as anything.

I shot some of the images with a macro lens and some with a regular lens. You can see a lot more detail with the macro lens, including those funky eyes and coiling proboscises. But it’s always a challenge to get a still, clean shot.

Still, butterflies fascinate me. For the first week or so of their life, they’re feeding, going from flower to flower friskily so they might fatten up after they come out of the chrysalis. After that, they’re busy burning off the energy they’ve gained from eating. They mate, and then they die. It’s such an extreme existence.

I’ve been trying to focus on the eyes. When I approach a butterfly as a subject, I work to find something intriguing about them, and often that thing reveals itself in the eyes. They all have such amazing, different eyes.

From far away, butterflies are extraordinarily pretty creatures. Human beings have long marveled at these delicate things, and an abundance of art exists to support that. But get close up to them and it’s a different story. Butterflies are actually amazingly ugly creatures.

On passions and procrastination

2009-08-31T10:46:00.002-04:00

I’ve been thinking about painting again.

I’ve been stocking up on canvases and breaking out pots of paint and letting my mind wander into painterly scenes. It’s been five or six months since I really painted, a fact which surprises me considering how deeply this passion extends, but I suppose it makes sense considering the way my other passion has taken centre stage in recent months.

Photography has been more instantaneously gratifying, to be sure. But sometimes you can put emotion into a painting that you simply cannot put into a photo. You can choose a vista that speaks to how you’re feeling, adjust your colours according to your emotional levels, apply paint in exactly the strokes that speak to your state of consciousness. I don’t paint from anything in particular—what you see on canvas is the product, purely, of whatever’s floating through my head.

Anyway, I’m poised. My brushes are in jars, my painting supplies are in art boxes in the backroom, my canvases are stored up against the walls. I am in a position to paint at any time, in the back room of the gallery. Just throw down some tarps so nothing gets on the rug and lose myself in my head. Only thing I’m waiting for now is inspiration.

Actually, it’s more procrastination that’s holding me up than the absence of inspiration. There are a lot of things I’d like to paint, lots of images crawling through my brain, making my fingers itch. But I want to be circumspect.
Sometimes I think, I want to do this, but unless I’m here during the middle of the night, I don’t want to even get started. There will be interruption after interruption if I try to paint during the day, and when I get going on something, I want to keep going.

I’ve painted since I was 15 years old. My grandmother used to paint. I have a few of her paintings. She tended to do a lot of landscapes. I liked her style, and seeing her paint gave me an appreciation for it. My mother has painted, too, and she actually gave me a painting that she did, a water lily, done in oil. Well, if I had to be honest, I guess I took the thing. But I’m glad to have it. Anyway, mostly she sews, my mother. She makes some beautiful quilts.

And so back to me, and my itchy fingers. It was a hard transition for me to go from painting to making my art on a computer. Now I’m used to it, and enjoy very much the way photography is such an immediate rush. So the irony now is that it might be difficult for me to go back to my first love at this point, at-the-ready canvases and paintbrushes notwithstanding.

Art can inspire such confusion.

A Midsummer Night’s Reflection

2009-08-18T19:25:00.003-04:00

Summer of 2009? It’s going by in a flash.

I didn’t get out and do a lot of the exploring and photography I would have liked to. I used to be able, at the drop of a hat, to go somewhere and shoot something. I would take my schnauzer and my camera and go for a walk in some conservation area or whatever and just lose myself in my work. I can’t take my Doberman Lilly anywhere. If I have her on the leash, she’ll drag me and the camera around; if I take her off leash, I’ll hear someone screaming in a couple of minutes.

Mind you, the weather sucked for the early weeks. And we had a garbage strike, so who would want to go to a park anyway? You’re up to your ankles in bugs, raccoons and other vermin. I include the mayor in that comment.

But I digress.

Anyway, while I didn’t get out to do my own shooting, I did get a chance to be in here surrounded by my own stuff. It’s exciting to have your own art gallery, after all. Sure, there’s trepidation, where you start to panic about sales and wish you were in a position to expand faster, but then some guy will walk in and buy four or five prints off the wall.

And so that’s how I’ve whiled away this season: in the gallery working on the images I’ve taken over the years. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do forever, but have procrastinated over endlessly. You always take a bunch of shots and say, “I’ll work on those eventually!” And then never do.

This summer, babysitting the space lit a fire under the soles of my feet. It gave me a chance to really sort through what I’ve got; to throw out what’s not good; to perfect what is. I’m discovering all these photos I’d forgotten about.

Mind you, I still struggle with all of this. I have to be a more ruthless editor of my own work. I’m always looking for the one redeeming part of a photograph that would let me keep it, with reason. But let’s face it: When you shoot hundreds of thousands of shots, how many of them are actually useful?

Fit to Print

2009-08-13T10:13:00.003-04:00

Because we’re so dissatisfied with the place where we currently outsource our printing, I’ve been looking into getting my own Xerox printer and finisher. If I’ve got my own high-end printing equipment here, I can not only print high-quality photographs and marketing materials myself, but I can do booklets, as well.

In the meantime, the guy across the hall has been trying to woo us into maybe leasing time on his printer. He does a lot of booklets for the real estate industry, and I think he’s keen to recoup some of his investment. He’s essentially got what I’m looking for, and there’s certainly some merit in considering buying time on an existing unit rather than blowing the big bucks on my own.

Still, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go that route.

For one, Xerox is offering me a much better deal than they gave this guy. For another, the savings we would get from leasing time on his machine are minimal, as compared to what it would cost us to set up for ourselves. And what would happen if we needed time on the printer, and so did they?! That kind of conflict I’m not into.

At the end of the day, I’d rather have this guy as a good neighbour than go into partnership with him and really ruin the relationship. Considering he’s in such close physical proximity here at the studio and gallery, I’ve got to make choices that make sense for the long term.

Which is not to say we’re committed to buying our own equipment, either.

Even if we do get our own printer, we’ve discovered that the investment will cost 20% more than we want to allot for that; 20% more than our current expenses in this arena. Just the same, we haven’t given up on the dream. We’re trying to work with Xerox so that, when all is said and done, we’ll be shelling out pretty close to what we pay now for outsourcing all of our printing work. I’ve got a salesperson looking into this for me, and I’m considering buying a demo model to pull the deal off.

And so the drama continues. Watch this space for my further adventures on the printer-purchasing front.

‘Scapes is on until August 8 and it’s going great.

2009-07-29T18:26:00.001-04:00

We’ve had lots of visitors and a slew of positive responses and enough sales to make me remember that there’s also some financial gain to be had from this labour of love.

It may be that there was pent-up demand for my photography, a bunch of art lovers waiting to see something on my walls other than penises. Ah well. There’s no accounting for taste.

People like looking at photos of landscapes, I think, because it offers them the chance to live vicariously. We tend to explore the world through photos. And if you can’t be in a certain geographical environment, at least you can imagine yourself in it.

As for me, I like photographing landscapes because they’re so universal. I find them peaceful. I find them inspiring.

Sometimes when I’m meditating, I invent landscapes and paint them. These places that I fly to are usually somewhere with water. Maybe that’s because I’m a Cancer. Maybe it’s because I grew up on Lake Erie. Or maybe I’m just perpetually thirsty.

And it might be my agoraphobia talking here, but I think that having people in your shots sometimes amounts to little more than interference.

Mind you, it’s not a cakewalk capturing the perfect shot of a ’scape, either, even if it is laid out in front of you in absolute stillness. You have to be mindful of lots of things: time of day, celestial events, location of the sun and so on. Sometimes you have to wait forever for the most favourable conditions for your shots. I remember for this one shot—come to the show and you’ll see the one I mean—I had to sit in front of a fountain in Savannah, Georgia, for such a long time before all the wandering admirers had finally vacated my shot. It’s not cheating, this. I’m the photographer, after all. It’s my vision.

A Boy and His Toys

2009-07-03T17:24:00.004-04:00

As it happens, I’ve stumbled into a vocation that comes with a massive requirement for expensive tackle. In order to take the kind of photography that attracts eyeballs and produces pictures large and meticulous enough to encourage purchase, I simply need a staggering quantity of stuff.

And the pursuit of said stuff is neverending. No sooner have I scored for myself the latest digital camera than a new series hits the streets, rendering my shiny new device out of date. A person could get lost in this game of catchup. I gave up the chase long ago. After you’ve done that about three or four times. You go, forget it. What I’ve got already is working for me.

Still, I get off on getting new equipment, and I’m poised to take delivery, momentarily, of some pretty cool new stuff.

For one, I’m looking at a larger printer, this one a 44” 10-colour Epson. Having one of these bad boys on board this will mean I can produce larger photos than I ever could before. This thing will print shots that are 44” wide and as long as I want on canvas, paper and a bunch of other substrates. I’m looking forward to that.

To go with it, I’m going to buy a new camera which will do large-format shots. It’ll be a full-frame camera, so I get more size without pixilation. I’m looking at the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. This new camera is 21.1 megapixels. My current camera is only 10.

A friend of mine, Ted, has the first Canon EOS 5D and he’s gone out with some Outdoor Canada people and shot moose and other stuff in the wild, and Mountain Equipment Co-Op has a huge shot of his moose in their store. He was my mentor, essentially. I met him when I was hairstyling and we started talking about my interest in photography. When I finally got a camera of my own, Ted and I would go out on little jaunts and talk. He inspired me to do more with it.

The new camera will have GPS and a wi-fi, so I can shoot directly to the computer. You take a shot, set up the Bluetooth connection and the image will zip right to your screen. Rather than just looking at a small display window on the back of the camera, you’ve got a 17” laptop and, within moments of shooting, you can go through the shots and immediately edit and delete. You don’t have to bring home 50 Gb of photos and say, I think I’m just going to store these for now.

This ruthless editing deal is what Ted has told me all through the years: You have to learn to get rid of things. It’s not easy, though, being an artist and a clutterbug. Five years later, a shot is still sitting on your drive, awaiting that moment that you might actually find a use for it, in spite of its little bit of blur. That’s the digital photographer’s curse: you have to learn to edit and be tough on yourself.

Plus, I’m getting a new Mac, a Mac Pro tower. The lease on my home Mac is coming due, so I’m going to buy it and let the graphic designer use it.

All of this means better-quality images that can go larger without distortion.

Just the same, it’s important to bear in mind that it’s not all about the tools, this photography game. You can have the fastest, biggest, most tripped-out gear in the world, but if you don’t know what makes a good shot, you’re not going to go far.

You still have to have that eye. I’m not trying to make it sound like an exclusive club. Sometimes I’ll look at other photographers and think, Wow, I wish I was as good as that guy. But having a lot of equipment doesn’t mean you’re good.

It just means you spent a lot of money.

Men continues, and let’s all be thankful for it.

2009-06-26T09:07:00.002-04:00

Until July 4, a fella can still wander up to my gallery, at 40 Wynford Dr., and get himself an eyeful of exotic, and occasionally erotic, man-centric photography.

It’s no coincidence that we chose to mount this show over the run of Toronto’s pride week. As much as I have grown a bit up and away from the raucous events that mark this annual celebration, I’m still awfully fond of the thing. And as devoted to its principles as ever.

I hear a lot of people talking badly about the pride parade all the time, and how corporate it’s become. But who the hell do they expect to pay the bills?

Anyway, I used to go out and march. Years ago, before it was even a parade. We were just marching for human rights then, staging sit-downs in the middle of Yonge and Wellesley and stuff. Then it wasn’t a lot of floats; it was just a lot of people marching, looking to make sure their rights were respected.

Things are certainly different now. People are more tolerant, more accepting. Even parents of men who reveal themselves to be gay are more supportive than before. But a curious thing has happened on the inside. Now, a lot of the young people describe themselves as “straight acting” or “bisexual.” I think, Why the f*** did we fight for our rights when these little twits can’t even come out and just be who they are?

It was a hard-won victory, this, and it’s irresponsible to fritter it away or distance yourself from it. Embrace it.

And so on the one hand, things have gotten better, but on the other, they haven’t. There’s more reluctance among young people to own up to their sexuality now. That bothers me. We fought a long time to get the rights that we have.

The whole pride event is a good thing, still. It helps unify people, or at least those of us who are still thinking we’re “gay.” It also encourages some understanding in other people.

And for me personally? I like to photograph the parade. It’s such a colourful environment. The costumes are fantastic. Some people spend a lot of time and money on these things, and these guys dragging huge peacock confections that are 20 feet high are a sight to behold. And those amazing costumes that are so heavy they literally have to be supported on wheels. That’s what makes the pride parade such a blast. The last time I went, there was a black guy who had silver paint all over him. So dramatic! Such a lot of work! But the results were pretty remarkable. It was almost like a Caribana thing. I like that. I like the spectacle of it all.

Just the same, I can think of a place where a guy with an interest in celebrating the male physique could more profitably spend his time: my gallery. You could go down there in the heat and crowds and find a man, sure. But you could also come up here to the gallery to where it’s cool, and take home a man that will hang around for a long time to come.

We have arrived

2009-06-10T17:54:00.001-04:00

After dozens of hectic days and at least as many sleepless nights, we’re finally ready to throw back the covers on Men, our latest photographic exhibit. Our opening night is tonight and the show runs until July 4 at my gallery, at 40 Wynford Dr., in Toronto.

We have high expectations for this one. We’ve done a real marketing blitz that genuinely pleased me and which has resulted in several displays of interest from the media.

Still, not all the expressions of curiosity about this show have been laced with applause. Lots of folks are wary about a photo exhibit that features semi-clothed (and, let’s face it, sometimes not-so-clothed-at-all) men.

It’s no-man’s land, this territory, and I’m as much a stranger in it as the next guy.

I had a call last week from a woman who paints full-frontal nudes. She wanted to know if I was meeting the same resistance she is to showing naked figures in a public space. In her case, she’s been asked to remove the “offending” art. She’s fighting this ruling, but I’m not sure how strong her case will be considering that she doesn’t own her gallery space.

For me, it’s different. I own my gallery, and I told her as much. Just the same, I’m not deceiving myself. There will almost certainly be backlash when someone walks around the corner of the studio space and sees what’s waiting for them there. (We’ve attempted to offer some level of discretion to the show by tucking the more, er, graphic photographs from the mix into the back corners of the gallery.) I’ve thought about what I’ll say when I’m confronted with it, but haven’t really come up with anything good yet.

What does a person say, after all, when there’s a crowd of people around them enjoying their art, and someone gets irate in the midst of it? I suppose we’ll see….

As far as my own personal take on this so-called controversy goes, I have to go with, Who cares? I watched a program on television the other night about photography. One guy they were interviewing was intellectualizing what he was doing with his photographs, getting all cerebral on his artistic choices, and I thought, Wow, what a load of crap! You really rehearsed that well!

I shoot nudes because I like naked guys. Full stop.

I find it exciting. Full stop again.

It’s not necessarily sexual; it’s just fun. It’s electrifying. So if people think I’m doing a porno shoot, fluffing the models preshoot or riding them afterwards, well, that’s their lookout. I ain’t gonna let it drag me down.

Yesterday, a woman who works in the office across the hall from my gallery dropped by to ask whether our door would be open during the exhibit. Um, yes, I told her. It’s a show, after all.

I guess I’ll shut my door then, she said.

Knock yourself out, I thought (but didn’t say), as she turned heel and strode back down the hall. Knock yourself out.

The Approach of Men

2009-06-07T12:53:00.004-04:00

We’re less than a week away.

It’s exciting, it’s fun . . . it’s scary.

I’ve got newspapers and magazines after me for interviews. I’ve never had that kind of attention before. It’s a dream, this having people so interested in me, but it’s unsettling, too. Like a lot of artists who are used to working in relative isolation, I tend to get a bit anxious when the spotlight shines too hotly on me.

I’m waiting for my frames to be delivered. I’ve ordered all of them, along with the supplies I need to cut the glass and mattes. That’ll be my next big task: cutting all my mattes and some of the glass. And then framing everything. It’s going to be huge and weary-making and tedious.

Mind you, framing is an art in itself. I guess it comes easy to me. I don’t think of it really as a job. I’m not a framer, but I like to learn. And I’m always learning things about framing. I’m self-taught, and I love that there’s something new all the time.

This is the biggest show I’ve ever mounted. All told, we’re going to line the walls of this gallery with 35 images for Men. Bearing in mind that we had to go through some 6,000 individual shots to get there, that we did is quite a feat.

And it’s a bit neverending. We’ll have settled on a collection and then my eye will catch something else and I’ll just know it has to be in the show. It’s about the mix as much as it is the individual choices.

I have a vision for the final presentation. I made photocopies of all the prints and then placed them on the floor below the spot on the wall where I envision them going. This way, I get a real sense of how the show will unfold for the gallery-goer who’s making his or her way around the space. I want to anticipate their journey, and offer a photographic experience that’s pleasurable and that makes sense.

We’re going to repaint this place before we hang the next show. In the next day or two, I’ll go out with a roller and go over where the walls need a bit of sprucing up.

There are a lot of sleepless nights coming up for me. I’m awake till the sun comes up when I’m putting the finishing touches on a show. And it’s more than just industry that unsettles me. I get restless before the opening. I take a few hours of sleep and then can’t sleep again.
But the sleeplessness always proves worth it. I have huge expectations for this upcoming show. I really can’t wait to get on top of Men.

Getting ready for Men

2009-06-04T17:13:00.001-04:00

It’s no secret that I like men. I like the way they look, they move, they smell. I find the male body fascinating: a work of art presented in ropy muscle and tough sinew and square bone that’s just asking to be captured on film.

The male physique provides me with an endless and extraordinary source of photographic fodder. It’s my greatest pleasure to turn my lens on the masculine form and I can snap away merrily—adjusting the lighting, playing with settings, poking and prodding—for hours. It’s thanks to that preoccupation, I suppose, that I managed to amass some 6,000 images as potential material for my upcoming exhibit, Men. What a massive chore it’s been sorting through literally thousands of shots in search of the 40 best, the collection that will ultimately make up the body of the next show.

When I photographed these men, I really indulged the experience. It’s important to me that my models are relaxed, and I think I have an ability to put them at ease in a way that serves us both well. I’m comfortable in my skin, and that frees them up to be comfortable, too. The end result is a fantastic compilation of photographs that really shows men in their natural elements, really reveals their inner workings. I think that’s a big part of what makes my work so special.

I move around a lot when I shoot men because I’m so excited by the subject matter. I ask them to hold their poses for long stretches, so that I can explore them and get exactly what I’m after. It’s hard work, and I’m endlessly grateful to the guys who offer themselves up for my exploration. The results of the effort, though, are always worth it.

Some of the shots I’ve chosen for the show focus in on the “parts” of a man, rather than presenting him as a “whole.” I made this choice because I think it offers a different view of the subject than what is conventionally on offer. You can see all sorts of shots of beautiful men, after all, but how many give an observer the chance to really appreciate the individual elements that make that man so beautiful?

Besides, it’s one thing to see a gorgeous specimen of the male sex, to salivate over the 21-year-old hardbody as the ultimate dream, but what does he look like if you’re just watching his shoulders?

Hard bodies are on prominent display these days at the Mark Siddall Gallery

2009-05-19T13:32:00.005-04:00

Hard bodies are on prominent display these days at the Mark Siddall Gallery, where photographer Mark Siddall explores the muscular business of being male in his new exhibit, Men.

An uncompromising, unapologetic, unflinching tribute to the masculine experience, this collection showcases some of Siddall’s finest work in a stunning parade of photographs that’s a genuine visual treat to the eye. The artist’s subjects reward his easy, comfortable style with shots that offer a candid view of the male body in repose, and a rare glimpse into a man’s personal physical space.

Through the photographs of Men, Siddall tells the sumptuous, sensuous story of a man’s physical life. The tantalizing collection invites viewers to witness the excruciating beauty of a man’s hands, the provocative bend of his knee, the heartbreaking promise of his lips.

All sinew and steel, the subjects of Siddall’s shots go to some lengths to exquisitely distinguish man from woman. It’s a distinction that visitors to the gallery’s stimulating visual evidence of same, will find a profound pleasure to contemplate.

Gotham comes to shuddering, shattering, shimmering life with our New York exhibit

2009-04-18T18:02:00.004-04:00

In this photographic tribute to New York, I captured the gritty, urbane and utterly unique urban geography of one of the world’s most vital cities. I approach all of my subjects with an extraordinary eye, offering fresh glimpses of an unreservedly distinctive landscape that famously never shrinks from the camera lens.

All shots are post 9-11, all below Central Park — are windows to this iconic metropolitan scene, framed in museum-quality splendour and hung like memories along the walls of my eponymous gallery. I invite you to stroll its length and enjoy a view of New York from angles you’d never thought of before.

This photographic journey invites participants to clamber up dangling fire escapes, admire the golden Prometheus in his Rockefeller Center throne and marvel at Times Square in all its neon glory. It includes a book of limited-edition prints that preserves the remarkable takes on this remarkable town.