London City Life Magazine, March/April 2005

Collecting Art 101
By Mary Hatt

	Collecting Art 101, Group Exhibition, January 2005, installation shot No matter the wonderful paintings on display, art galleries sometimes come across as spare, even sterile spaces. They can be cube-like, painted white and so hushed you don't dare more than whisper. If a gallery seems austere, it's probably because it has been designed to eliminate potential distractions from the art on its walls. The flip side, however, is a space that can be down-right intimidating, especially for people who are not used to the gallery scene. London gallery owner Michael Gibson agree. Besides, seeing art in a gallery is not at all like appreciating it in a home setting. For this reason, Gibson recently launched Collecting Art 101: What Would It Be Like To Live With Art? With the help of Michael Roberts Fine Furniture and Paul Bright Art & Design, Gibson temporarily turned his gallery on Carling St. into three living spaces featuring mid-20th century and modernist furniture plus an ecclectic mix of art on the walls. The front gallery, dubbed "The Great Room", comprised intimate sitting areas and a sleek dining room with abstract paintings by David Urban and landscapes by Roly Fenwick and Greg Hardy. The middle gallery was turned into a cosy den in which one could curl up amongst the lush, dark landscape paintings by Michael Smith and David Alexander. Gibson transformed his third gallery into a sleek contemporary lounge featuring mid-20th century furniture, contemporary photography and mixed media work. "We are trying to expand horizons", says Gibson, adding that part of owning art is to sit in a room with your partner or friends and look at a painting, continuing to find something different about it. "But for us to get someone in here to sit and say, that is an amazing painting, can be challenging. The idea was that because people are comfortable in a furnished home, we would bring furniture into the gallery and to show what art will do for a room." London freelance jounralist Mary Ann Colihan, who has purchased many paintings at the Michael Gibson Gallery, considers art to be a defining element in the character of her home. The collection she has put together over the years with her husband Paul Adams is something they both enjoy each and every day. For her, the collection is not about amassing paintings but simply appreciating the way a real piece of art on canvas, done by somebody's own hand, can transform a room. For example, the Greg Hardy painting in her hallway reveals unique vitality every time she looks at it. "Because there is so much life that goes into that painting, it in turn enlivens the space it is in," says Colihan. "You take a plain wall and it gives a third dimension. It makes an empty space sing out." Texture and the passage of light on a painting at different times of the day are what intrigue local architect John Nicholson about the original art. That can only happen whan a painting is seen regularly and over time. He believe the art in the collection he has built up over time with his wife Marg contributes to his own creative instincts as an architect. In fact, the Nicholsons move their art around at regular intervals just to get a different feel for each piece. "It is often a prompt to help solve design challenges," he says. Art snobs worth their salt don't generally look favorably on anyone wanting to purchase paintings simply to match their interior decorating. But Colihan, whose honesty and down-to-earth style belie her deep understanding of the subject, says there's nothing wrong with recognizing art for its place as a decorative element. "Even though I feel that I love each individual piece of art for its own reasons, it does have to work in the space we put it in," says Colihan, adding that it can be challenging to satisfy the requirements of good decor and good art. While it would be nice to be able to start with the art and select colours and furnishings to complement it, this is usually an unrealistic option. "you do have to work with what you have. So I like to try out paintings. I can't tell you the number of things we have hauled in here only to find they haven't worked and been returned to the gallery."
	Collecting Art 101, Group Exhibition, January 2005, installation shots: ABOVE LEFT: dining room with Katherine Knight photography and Michael Adamson abstract paintings; ABOVE RIGHT: Shari Hatt photography. . Gibson also acknowledges the powerful impact that art imposes on the colour and scale of a home's interior, and vice versa. So he, like most gallery owners, permit clients to try out pieces at home, on approval. Then, once a piece or two has been selected, he hopes people will come to understand the many-layered experience of living with art and how, ultimately, it enhances your quality of life. "By collecting art, you will learn a lot about yourself, whether you want to or not," says Gibson's long-time friend and client, Ross Woodman, University of Western Ontario professor emeritus of English literature. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more avid collector than Woodman, who, at age eight in Winnipeg, began to gather movie stills and went on over the years to amass an important collection of paintings, some of which has gone on to the Art Gallery of Ontario and the McIntosh Gallery at the University of Western Ontario. Dozens of works, however, continue to live with him and his wife Marion, a renowned Jungian analyst, speaker and teacher. "I see my life in a very different way when I look at what I have collected over 50 years. I see that I do have a soul and the evidence of it is all around me." Woodman describes his collection as a kind of pyschic history. He says each painting was chosen for a specific reason and reflects something of that particular stage in his life or his wife's. "I was very interested in contemporary art and what was going on in the art world in the fifties and sixties," he says, recalling the exciting period in London when the likes of Greg Curnoe and Jack Chambers wer making their marks. Woodman says he would buy paintings still wet from the artist's studio. His passion grew through regular visits to studios and getting to know the artists. In fact, he later helped establish the 20-20 Gallery art co-op on King St. "I remember that one of my major ambitions in life was to get into my own time, into the twentieth century so that I belonged in the time in which I lived. I taught the nineteenth century Romantic period and the Victorian period. But I wanted to get right in to the now of the twentieth century and the painting was the vehicle. The relationship you establish with the art is a way of relating to the society that you are in." Woodman's collection is partial to abstract art, in which moods and ideas are conveyed by an artist's personal style and self-expression. It is challenging art, short on the ease of familiar and literal experiences apparent in the realistic pieces. Abstract or realistic--and he has plenty of both--what attracts Woodman is the way in which a painting, like a photographer's camera, captures a particular moment in time. As a collector, he says, "paintings allow him to find what is eternal in the particular." "Intoxicating" is a word Woodman uses to describe the pursuit of collecting art and it's clear that he couldn't imagine life without his paintings, sculptures and objets. But his passion, though fascinating, may be one-of-a-kind here in London. Far more frequently, Gibson finds his "collectors" to be people who are starting to make room in their lives for good art once they have acquired certain bells and whistles. "I feel that many people have all the tangible things now like furniture, a new kitchen and maybe a few toys in the garage, " says Gibson. "They start thinking that now is the time to get something more culturally interesting in their lives." A popular way in which some people budget for art collecting is by marking special occasions with gifts of art. Years ago, the Nicholsons made a pact.  They never buy Christmas, anniversary or birthday gifts for each other. But once a year, they purchase a painting. Of course, both have veto power. After 25 years of marriage, they now have many original pieces but emphasize they are collectors not to possess art, only to enjoy it. Colihan and Adams have also been collecting this way for years. "For birthdays or special occasions, I can't think of anything else that I would want more than art," says Colihan, adding that she and her husband also cherish their "memory" art picked up over the years while visiting places such as Australia, France and the southwestern United States. "Things like cars and jewelry don't really interest me but I really love art." Gibson's show, which ran until the end of January, illustrated how something special happens when a pieces of art get integrated into a living environment. While in the gallery, it can be studied and appreciated. A painting may speak favourably to some while leaving others stone cold. When it becomes part of a relaxed residential setting, however, that piece of art moves beyond being merely appreciated to creating personal enjoyment every day, for years to come.

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