Corktown lane commemoration celebrates influential Canadian artist

Laura Servage –

A Corktown public lane running west from Bright Street will be named after the renowned Ca­nadian artist Joyce Wieland, the Toronto and East York Commu­nity Council decided on Octo­ber 22.

Wieland (1930–1998), born in Toronto, was a prolific artist whose works spanned textiles, painting, collage and film. A feminist, ecologist and political activist, she tempered her cri­tiques with playful irreverence and sensuality. Torontonians may recognize her work Barren Ground Caribou (1977-1978), which hangs in the Spadina sub­way station.

Wieland began to hone evi­dent artistic talent at the west-end Central Technical School, graduating in 1948. With her husband, Canadian artist Mi­chael Snow, she spent a decade in New York in the 1960s, a heady experimental period for the arts. Both artists were influ­ential in experimental film.

The ’60s and ’70s were also decades of political turbulence in which Wieland and Snow en­gaged in American civil rights and anti-war efforts. When they returned to Canada in 1971, Wieland had turned her activ­ism towards Canadian identity and the environment.

From 1975, she lived and worked at 497 Queen Street East, close to the public lane that will bear her name. Filmmaker and media artist Su Rynard re­calls the brick rowhouse where she worked with Wieland as an “energetic and exciting hub of women artists.” While Joyce was the senior artist, says Ry­nard, “the atmosphere was nev­er hierarchical – she was a col­laborator and mentor to many.”

The proposal to name Joyce Wieland Lane came from Cork­town resident John Goodwin, who first met the artist in 1975 at the Ontario College of Art.

Wieland spoke about making her experimental film, The Far Shore. Goodwin recalls, “It was incredible. She wrote the script, raised production money, shot, directed and edited the film. I don’t think another Canadian woman had ever made a feature film before.”

While putting together the naming proposal, Goodwin talked to neighbours, who rec­ognized Wieland’s name from the plaque on her Queen Street home. “But they didn’t know about her history” he said. “At a time when women artists were underrepresented, she was mul­ti-talented, political and una­fraid to work at the experimen­tal margins of the art world.”

Wieland’s work is in art gal­leries across Canada and the United States. Until January 4, you can visit the exhibit Joyce Weiland: Heart On at the Art Gallery of Ontario.