Mat Dubé
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Toronto Island Residency - First Impressions

5/6/2014

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By Mat Dubé · Facebook, Twitter, Google+
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The Beach at Artscape Gibraltar Point Residency, Toronto ON, 2014
I've been at Artscape Gibraltar Point in Toronto for almost a week now and wanted to let you know how it's going so far!  This is the first of 4 residencies I'll be attending this Summer and I'm pretty excited about all the time I've managed to set aside to get work done.

It's a pretty cool spot and I'm really glad I decided to apply to this one!  The residence is in a re-purposed elementary school on Centre Island - just a short ferry ride away from downtown and right on the shores of Lake Ontario.  Each artist gets an entire classroom as a studio - it's kind of neat to be back in school with the old chalkboards, drinking fountains and the little desks.  I can't believe how small everything is!  I've also got a nice view of a lagoon full of ducks and the CN tower in the distance.  It's a great place to spend time outdoors too - the residency is a few steps away from surprisingly nice beaches and there are bike/walking paths all around the island.

It's a lot larger than what I was expecting - there are more people (approx. 20-30) doing different types of art and staying for different lengths of time so it's a bit less intimate than Elsewhere Studios where there were just a handful of people sharing a smaller space.  I think this can be good or bad depending on what you prefer, but I've enjoyed both so far.

At first I was a bit overwhelmed by the big empty space, the pressure to make my time here worthwhile and wasn't sure what kind of project I wanted to work on.  I decided to start playing around with some clay a couple of days ago and ended up sculpting a monkey head.  It must have been a subconscious response to an article I read last week about monkeys being shipped to the United States for animal testing.  I love monkeys and it really disturbed me to think that we're still using and abusing such amazing creatures in this way (please read more here).  I don't think this will be a one-off sculpture - I want it to be the start of a bigger project to raise awareness about animal cruelty issues. 

If you have any questions about the residency or my new project, let me know in the comments section below!


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Artscape Gibraltar Point Residency, Toronto ON, 2014
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Mat Dubé at Artscape Gibraltar Point Residency, Toronto ON, 2014
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Monkey Sculpture made by Mat Dubé at Artscape Gibraltar Point Residency, Toronto ON, 2014
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    Hi, I'm Mat Dubé, a contemporary figurative artist from Canada.  This is a blog about my art, life and travels.  You can read more about me here.

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