Each year, my favourite Toronto art gallery hosts a delightful event intended to make original art truly accessible. Art Interiors‘ trailblazing event – The Festival of the Smalls – has been making original art affordable to all of us for 19 years now. The owners of the Forest Hill Village gallery – Lisa Diamond Katz and Shira Wood – carefully curate a delightfully eclectic mix of small canvases each year. Ranging from $55 to $250, the diverse works on offer are perfectly priced for your Christmas shopping list!
Paintings by Erin Vincent and Elizabeth Lennie
As you may remember from previous posts like this one, I am a big fan of curating interesting groupings of smalls. While large canvases can be a powerful way to bring soul to your space, groupings of smalls offer a dynamic and inspired approach to creating interest and anchoring a wall. Done well, a grouping of smalls can even script something of a story in the way each of the pieces speak to one another.
Today for Make Something Monday, I thought I would share some of the Art Interiors artists I love and  offer you a peak at their contributions to this year’s Festival of the Smalls. Up first, Elizabeth Lennie, an inspired Canadian artist who captures the visceral and emotional connection with two favourite Canadian past times – swimming and hockey.

Up next is Elzbieta Krawecka, whose large landscape paintings are spectacular and can truly anchor a space. {Take a look back here at my use of one of Elzbieta’s large canveses in a client’s beautiful traditional master ensuite.} Elzbieta’s masterful painting is both classic and refined, well worthy of being collected and engaged with daily. Her smalls are the perfect way to add her spectacular work to your collection! Here are a few of my favourites this year. If someone could just buy me the first one for Christmas {please + thanks} I’d be ever so delighted!

Emily Bickell has become well known for her remarkably realistic water surface studies. Often just close-up studies of the play of light and movement on the water, they communicate a serenity and quietude that can only come from spending time on the blue, surrounded by nature. I am particularly fond of the last two as they transport me to the lakes of Northern Ontario, a place of great serenity, relaxation and beauty for me.

If I had to sum up Kelly Grace’s work in one word, for me it would be nostalgia. As a child, I spent countless hours with our family’s Viewmaster, clicking through slides of beautiful scenes. I can still hear the hard plastic “click” the lever would make as I scrolled through the images. Kelly Grace’s series of paintings {see two below} instantly transport me back to my living room’s hardwood floor where I would lay on my belly or my back, totally enrapt by the images hidden inside this deceptively simple gadget.

The pieces I’ve shared today are just a small sampling of the small works available during Art Interiors‘ Festival of The Smalls, on until December 24th. If you are in search of something inspired, personal and entirely unique for a loved one on your list, you simply must pay a visit to the lovely ladies at the gallery for help with finding that perfect piece of original art. It’s the kind of gift that is guaranteed to surprise + delight.
Happy {Make Something} Monday!
xo
s.