Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

George Paginton. The man who quietly painted Peel, Mississauga, Toronto and Canada. New show. New book.   Rene Nand(l) PAMA, MPP Anand, curator author   Sharona  Adamowicz-Clements   By Stephen Weir and  P hotos  Herman Custodio  The 401 super highway winds through Peel County like a strip of concrete spaghetti.   There are glass and steel condos where cows once grazed.   Last century painting great George Paginton would not recognize his old stomping grounds where he loved to wander and paint. Back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s George Paginton was the patron saint of landscaping painting in a part of Ontario that would one day become the busy metropolises of the Toronto GTA, Brampton and Mississauga. Inspired by the Peel landscape like the Group of Seven’s love of the outdoors, Paginton's direct, truthful and rugged paintings of the land brought out a sense of beauty rarely seen now adays in art galleries and museums. Born in...

Jon Butler opens his exhibition of photographs, on display in the RBC Tower on Bay Street. Part of Contact Festival. Jon Butler uses his camera to have a Group of Seven moment in God's Country La Cloche Spirit: The Equivalent Light, opens in Toronto. Part of Contact Festival   Jon Butler at one time was an integral part of the Thomson News Corporation. Publisher. Newspaper Executive.  Nowadays, he lets others write the news, while he pursues beauty with his camera in Northern Ontario.  On Monday evening Butler opened an exhibition of photographs he took in the La Cloche region of Georgian Bay.  The show launch was held in the lobby of the  Royal Bank's Bay Street Tower as part of the month long Contact Photography Festival.  Three Ontario and Federal cabinet ministers, a over 50-art lovers attended the opening sponsored by Vale's Base Metals, a Toronto based mining company. The La Cloche area, known for the beauty of its quartzite mountains, cr...