Carolyn Toronto ART

02/05/2024

08/01/2024

I watched this documentary and was touched that it’s never too late to do music!! She’s in her 90s and didn’t start performing until her 60s! She’s Japanese born obsessed with Chopin like I am with both so had to share this dualistic find❤️

Over 90 years old, Fuzjko Hemming still takes to the world's stages as a "pianist of the soul." But her life has not been without obstacles, such as severe hearing loss and a period of statelessness. Her favorite composer, "poet of the piano" Chopin was also beset by obstacles. Taking a winter sojou...

12/11/2023

If you need your claw foot tub painted I’m for hire;) this is in a Bisbee AZ home, my tribute to artist Frieda Khalo ❤️

02/12/2022

Awomyn and Amen to this;)!

14/11/2022

This is our local version of a Waylin wall…local genius artist Bill Mead!

18/05/2022

Time for another woman of steel ;)

A 2-ton stainless steel statue of a Sioux woman now honors the Lakota and Dakota natives of South Dakota A giant stainless steel statue of a Native American woman now stands guard over the Missouri River in the middle of South Dakota. The 50-foot beauty soars over highway 90, between […]

22/01/2022

13/01/2022

Passing on Carol Lynn’s post, This should be a fascinating film about a wonderful Gay LDS artist from the 70s

Bright Spark: The Reconciliation of Trevor Southey

20/10/2021

Carolyn Toronto's
October 18, 2011 ·

Walked through my old neighborhood today. In the hazy fall light it felt like a dreamscape of sepia photo stills. We kids are throwing the fallen crab apples at each other and kicking piles of leaves, the smokey smell of a crisp evening holds us hostage to driveway basketball even when all the moms are standing on front porches melodically hollering in vain for us to come home for dinner "Ca-ro-lynnn" "Lee ee sa!" "Scah ott"
The peach brick Toronto home I spent 18 years of my life in (plus a few overstayed returns;) is now painted grey with additions of white barn shutters, seemingly a hollywood set camouflaging job...it made my heart sink to see it transformed and also up for sale. In the three large front room windows I see memories of mom's faux stained glass window cellophane creations of the manger scene glowing...the view of the dramatic Mt. Olympus from the front porch, the quaking of the aspen leaves as we rock on the squeeky lounge chairs to the chirp of the crickets, watching the sky become a guilded painting...ah fall sunsets!.. now other dramas are echoing through this house, adding voice to ours.
The giant willow tree I climbed up in to think about my dreams, watch the birds and spy on the happenings below, is gone...the aspens in front of my home are overgrown and tired and the garden, once my dads prized living art piece has shrunk into an insignificant collection of shrubs...the elegant Japanese elm, the roses, the iris, the lilies, all gone.

I think about the cardboard shack (the "Kookie Kitchen"we kids constructed, selling not so edible home baked goods like the lumpy doughnuts made with mashed potatoes that didn't quite get pulverized, and ritz crackers spread with peanut butter, no bake blobs of oatmeal and crisco and chocolate chips, in order to raise money to donate to the new Mormon temple being built. There was the pulley ride we rigged up from the willow tree to the crab apple tree, charging kids 10 cents a ride, the incredible miniature golf course Mark, Mike and Share and I created by hauling green s**g carpet from a garbage bin a mile away and carving it into rounded shapes with a bread knife, orchestrating a miniature golf course with a working erector set motorized windmill, hand sawed tire loop to loop, and banked curves and the lat station, a finally of skee ball holes to aim for..oh and also the Gong Show! and the rock and seed sales, etc..amazingly we created these things when we were 10-12 years old, without parental supervision!
I think about all the neighbors that were so dear to me, that I gauged the world through, whom I referenced as if characters in my play..or my own Sesame Street. Every home with at least 3 to 7 kids in it. Mostly Mormons except the Gearlings, a mysterious childless couple.. Mrs. Geerling sporting a whispy pile of chimney sweep black on top of her head, daring to wear above thigh shorts, tank tops and high heals in our modest community. OH I could go on and I will..but have to sleep..
It's painful to walk through the present of your past...I teared up a bit, wanted to see someone familiar but all were inside..and I am outside.

11/10/2021

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190801-tomorrows-gods-what-is-the-future-of-religion
Have to thank the creation of so many diverse religions for fostering the arts. Many great works were created as adornments for worship. Even if they pillaged money and resources from their poor followers to pay for it;)!

Throughout history, people’s faith and their attachments to religious institutions have transformed, argues Sumit Paul-Choudhury. So what’s next?

25/12/2020

Some Christmas commissions for some special kids in my family.

08/10/2020

life as art. It is your canvas, you compose it’s story, in muted tones or chromatic brilliance, change rearrange its composition, copy your masters style and technique or forge your own in rebellion or discovery, experiment, paint in controlled detail or wild expression, smudge it out, paint It over, and over, or refine it’s original composition, or recreate it’s content, With images of harmony or exciting chaos, create truth and beauty or cacophony, fiction or impropriety’s scandalous honesty, As long as it is YOUR vision...that is truth. You are Jackson Pollack, Rembrandt, Kandinsky, Cassatt, Botticelli, Van Gough, Munch, Klimt, Caravaggio, Judy Chicago, Kusama, Dali, so paint and Unabashedly BE your art. Hang it in a museum for all to see to be viscerally shocked or comforted, awed or repelled by...but get a reaction! For that confirms you exist! Or hide it under the bed in the dusty, indifferent darkness....your choice, share or remain unknown. Or show your art to only those who make an appointment to purchase in an elitist gallery, for a limited audience, Or paint on a public wall for the world to see. Your life, your Art is your statement to those who will view it. Love it, hate it, be NOT indifferent to, it is valid because it is YOU, it is your unique masterpiece.

23/09/2020

Painted this bathroom mural this week. Incorporating their Art Deco tile into the desert design..4.5 hours

14/09/2020

Just a little update/improvement on Dashiell's portrait by the store sign Jennifer Blanc-biehn

10/09/2020

Yesterdays 3 more hours work...almost done, painted it loose and light like a watercolor or fresco. Just doing the signage today...the angel is Jennifer Jennifer Blanc-biehn) and her son (Dashiell) we may add another cupid (a Johnny Ringo wrangler) if her husband feels left out!

08/09/2020

Started this mural this morning, for "Jen's Angel" Jennifer Blanc-biehn a kids and consignment shop. This is 3 hours worth. I'm flyin'! painting fast to get it done before the store opens!

03/08/2020

Harry’s Mayan temple, tried to upload these below the photo of when I was painting it to show the final product but it was too tedious to add one at a time as a comment, so here it is, if you need a temple foundation to your home give me a call;)